Oriental Bank to separate Bihar, Jharkahand business from Orissa

With a view to achieve focused growth in Jharkhand and Bihar, the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) will bifurcate the business of these two states from Orissa operations during the current fiscal.

Since it is not possible to cater to the business of the bank from distance, the bank has decided to bifurcate the business of these two states from the regional office located in Bhubaneswar.

The regional office for these two states will be located in Patna and 35 branches are proposed to come under the new regional office.

“The board has approved the proposal and the process will be completed during the current fiscal”, S C Sinha, executive director, Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) said.

Talking to the media after inaugurating the new office of the Bhubaneswar regional office, Sinha said, the operations of these two states are being controlled from the regional office at Bhubaneswar. Since the bank intends to be a pan-India bank, the bifurcation will assist in geographical expansion of the bank.

He said, Orissa has a lion’s share in the business of the Bhubaneswar zone. Out of the total Rs 2407 crore business in 2008-09, the state accounted for Rs 1670 crore business.

The bank plans to open 4 new branches in Orissa during this fiscal, which will take the total branches to 23 by September this year. The proposed locations are Argul, Patrapada, Kalinga Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) and Dhamra in Bhadrakh district.

To assist the small and medium enterprises to recover from the impact of the global slowdown, the bank has set up ‘Counseling centres” in all the regional offices. Besides, monthly meetings are being held with the SME enterprises.

OBC has set a target of 25 percent growth in Orissa in 2009-10 and will focus on agriculture, SME, mid-corporate and retail lending to achieve the target, he added. Purnendu Sarangi, deputy general manager (DGM) and the Regional Head of OBC was present.