BoI eastern zone targets retail loans, NPA reduction

State-owned Bank of India (BoI) eastern zone has targetted to mobilise retail loans in a big way as well as to reduce the NPAs by way of recovery and one-time settlement (OTS).
"To mobilise retail loans, the bank has decided to reach the borrowers. The bank has set a target of mobilising an additional Rs 600 crore from this segment during the current fiscal", S K Agarwal, GM, National Banking Group (east) told reporters here today.
He said already in the first two months of the current financial year, the eastern zone, comprising West Bengal, Odisha, Sikkim and the north-eastern states, had already garnered Rs 200 crore. "This is very encouraging."

On NPAs, he said that the bank's gross NPA and net NPA was a bit on the higher side.
"The bank's strategy was for massive recovery drive and OTS. The stress sectors in the eastern regions were steel, power and infrastructure," Agarwal said.
BoI is the fourth largest among public sector banks in West Bengal in terms of presence and business, he said adding the target for advances and deposits in the current fiscal was Rs 25,000 crore and Rs 55,000 crore respectively.
In the last financial year, the eastern region of the bank had generated a business of Rs 67,000 crore.