ISLAMABAD, July 23: The Agricultural Development Bank of Pakistan (ADBP) will disburse credit worth Rs35 billion to the farmers during 2002-03, says its chairman Istaqbal Mehdi.

He told Dawn here on Tuesday that Rs29 billion were disbursed to the farmers during the last financial year. “We may exceed the target of Rs35 billion for the current financial year to considerably help our farmers,” he added.

He said under a new restructuring plan, a real autonomy would be given to the ADBP board to run its affairs without outside intervention. Out of seven, six members of the board have been taken from the private sector.

After becoming an autonomous bank, the ADBP would no more be seeking the permission of the government to hire and fire people. “We do enjoy the support of the high authorities to become completely an autonomous body,” he claimed. He said the government would only be monitoring the affairs of the bank.

Mr Mehdi said that purpose of restructuring was to make the ADBP financially viable by removing its losses and ensuring certain discipline.

“And that is why there will also be a rightsizing and downsizing in the ADBP,” he said, adding that he could not immediately say as to how many people will be removed from their services.

However, he said a well thought out plan would be implemented to have the reorganization in the bank’s 49 regional offices and a head office. A total of 8,000 employees were currently working in the organization. There were 340 branches of the bank, some of them had been established what he said in God forsaken places and needed to be closed down.

Responding to a question, he said that a number of corruption cases had been referred to the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) for investigations and bringing to book all those who brought harm to the organization. He said many cases of non-payment of loans were pending in the courts awaiting judgment.

He said things had started improving in the ADBP and, “I can tell you proudly that we have a record recovery of loans worth Rs33.5 billion till June 30 this year.”

One of the important tasks being undertaken as part of the restructuring was to clean up the balance sheet of the ADBP, which had been completely destroyed in the past, he said.

“We are also getting conducted a portfolio audit from a leading firm with the help of the Asian Development Bank,” Mr Mehdi said.