KARACHI, March 31: The State Bank has extended up to September 30, 2004, the tenure of the SBP committee for resolution of cases of write-off of irrecoverable loans. The committee was supposed to finish its task by March 31, 2004.

The central bank announced on Wednesday that the extension in the tenure had been allowed on the request of the committee that had reported that many cases and disputes were still pending for resolution.

The SBP had constituted the committee with a former president of National Bank Inam Elahi as its chairman in March 2003 initially for six months. But then it had to extend the tenure several times to give the committee more time to resolve and settle cases and disputes involving write-off of irrecoverable loans. Central bankers and representatives of the private sector are also members of the committee.

The central bank has already issued detailed guidelines for this purpose. It had initiated the process of facilitating resolution of cases and disputes of loan write-offs as early as in October 2002.

In total, the committee had received around 1,800 complaints from the borrowers against their banks, half of which have already been disposed of.