The State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH), a predominantly Telangana-based bank, is planning to increase its branch network in Andhra Pradesh also and the number of branches will cross the 400-mark from the present 386 by the end of the financial year, according to Managing Director, Santanu Mukherjee. The bank has at present 710 branches in Telangana and 1,751 all over the country.

He was speaking to reporters here on Thursday after inaugurating the e-connect kiosk of the bank at Dwarakanagar branch. He said the bank would set up 50 more such kiosks in the country at various branches. Each kiosk will have two ATMs, one coin vending machine, and internet facility for the customers.

He said the bank had opened 62,000 new accounts under the Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana programme in Visakhapatnam zone alone. The bank had also taken up various relief programmes for the units and customers hit by cyclone Hudhud a month ago. Forty cyclone-hit small units in the city, the existing customers of the bank, had sought greater scale of finance and it would be sanctioned and further there would be rescheduling of loans, he added. "The bank has already given Rs 1.5 crore to the CM's relief fund for Hudhud and we may give Rs 1 crore or so," he said.

The SBH has also adopted a cyclone-hit village - Choochukonda - in Visakhapatnamd district. In response to a question on the farm loan waiver schemes announced by both AP and Telangana Governments, he said the bank had an exposure of Rs 4,000 crores in farm loans in Telangana and Rs 1,200 crores or so in AP.

"The Telangana Government has already released the amount for the first instalment of waiver and we have provided the data sought by the AP Government. We understand the first tranche will be released by the State Government soon," he said.

He said the net NPA at 2.87 per cent was within acceptable limits and the bank had provided for it. The capital adequacy at 11 per cent was also satisfactory.

>sarma.rs@thehindu.co.in

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