ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: All 343 field and 49 regional offices of Zari Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) have been abolished and new 25 zones set up, delegating more powers to zonal chiefs as a part of the restructuring and transformation campaign aimed at making the bank commercially strong and viable and mobilization of resources.

This was announced by ZTBL President Rashid Akhtar Chughtai while addressing a regional managers’ conference here on Tuesday.

He said that of the 25 zones, 12 had been established in Punjab, six in Sindh, four in the NWFP and three in Balochistan. The bank president said the implementation of the plan would start from January next year.

Mr Chughtai added that appointments of zonal chiefs would be advertised in the national press and senior vice-presidents and above officers would be given a chance for the posts and if they did not come on merit the posts would be filled in from outside on merit.

He said the board of directors had approved a raise in salaries of employees from July 1, 2005 announced by the government in the budget 2005-06. Mr Chughtai maintained that ZTBL had to perform business, besides its normal function to cater for credit facilities to agriculturists.

The objective of zoning, he noted, was to give a uniform treatment by abolishing all the 49 regional offices of the defunct ADBP and operationally divide the bank into 25 zones, each to be headed by a zonal chief.

About the future setup of zonal offices and their jurisdiction with regard to branches, he said criteria for the establishment of zonal offices was based upon the factors that included volume of business, distance of branches from zonal offices, availability of ZTBL’s owned buildings at various zonal stations, geographical proximity of regions to be merged, workload/future business potential and average number of branches per zone.

He added that the bank president would delegate such administrative and financial powers to the zones as deem fit for efficient and effective operations of field offices.

About the role of a zonal chief, he says the zonal chief being head of the zone represents middle management and controller of operational activities in the field. Mr Chughtai pointed out that the role of the zonal chief was of immense importance for achieving operational excellence and attainment of operational goals in three-fold activities — disbursement, recovery and resource mobilization — through his personal supervision, guidance and effective monitoring of branches.—APP