Khurana said the bank had achieved a profit of Rs 14.16 crore during the first six months of 1997-98.

He said the bank made a significant achievement with advance as loan to customers increasing by 8.58 per cent and non-interest income increasing by 3.46 per cent between April and September 1997 which Khurana claimed was due to the setting up of `dedicated draft issue counters' in many of the branches.

The zone also enjoyed a relatively better spread compared with other parts of the country due to the low-cost deposit mobilisation and the deployment of credit at remunerative interest rates, Khurana said.

He said the growth trend was expected to continue and the zone was expected to comfortably achieve the profitbudget.

The bank's deposits rose to Rs 2,869 crore from Rs 2,420 crore during September this year with a growth of 18 per cent, which was higher than the industry average, he said.

Ruling out the possibility of closure of the `loss-making' branches of the bank, Khurana claimed that the bank had so far made a successful attempt to reduce the number of branches from 51 in March 1998 to 33 in September 1998.

He said the remaining loss-making branches were proposed to be taken ``out of the red in a phased manner in the next two years.''

He said disbursements of Rs 50 crore on poverty-alleviation schemes had helped the bank push up credit figure from Rs 670 crore in March 1998 to Rs 697 crore in September 1998, allowing a growth of four per cent.

He said efforts were underway to reduce the non-profit asset (NPA) outstandings by way of cash recoveries and compromises and ``we have also taken up financing in a big way and plan to raise the credit deployment level to Rs 1,000 crore by year2000.''