ISLAMABAD, Dec 18: The conversion of Agricultural Development Bank (ADBP) into Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (from December 14), would help improve its operational as well as financial efficiency and as a result of coming out of political pressure it will be able to deliver better results.

This was stated by the chairman ZTBL board of directors Istiqbal Mehdi while talking to Dawn on prospects of the new organization which had been converted into full-fledged commercial bank.

He claimed that with acceleration of recovery campaign the disbursement of loans to farmers had also been increased, which stood at Rs39 billion last year and is expected to further go up in the current year.

He said that the bank’s conversion has also brightened chances of getting foreign monetary agencies support as the Asian Development Bank has already expressed its willingness to extend financial cooperation to the ZTBL in the near future.

Following lowering interest rate by the Bank of Punjab for the farmers, he said ZTBL will also consider such a possibility while remaining within its own condition.

He said under the restructuring programme of the bank some 2,000 employees including a good number of high ranking officials had applied for voluntary golden handshake (VGHS). The bank has overcome, to a great extent, the menace of corruption, nepotism and inefficiency by purging it of inefficient and corrupt officials.

He said after implementing the VGHS the organization would be left with about 6000 employees of which the surplus personnel will be adjusted after their re-training and re-orientation of jobs.

He said, “we have sacked or taken disciplinary action against no less then 200 officers while inquiries were in progress against a large number of others.

He denied the reports about rampant corruption and nepotism in the bank headquarters and claimed that almost all the officers, involved in mismanagement or corruption in transfers and postings had been reshuffled or removed to other places.

The ZTBL chief executive said, “we have attained around 70 per cent recovery target last year while the default on big project recovery was stagnant and stood at around 17 per cent.” He, however said, under changed policy no more then one million rupees were allowed as agricultural advance and the huge project advances have been given up.