KARACHI, April 1: The newly-born Sindh Bank will launch a nation-wide Benazir Zarai Card Scheme, to be inaugurated by President Asif Ali Zardari on Sunday next at Naudero. “The President will initially distribute 20 cards among farmers on Sunday at Nodairo,” CEO of Sindh Bank Ltd. Bilal Shaikh told Dawn on Friday.

The Bank plans to open 50 branches across the country by the end of the calendar year 2011 and will introduce the Benazir Card for small farmers and those in the livestock, fisheries and other sectors.

Currently the Bank has set up five braches in Sindh, including Karachi, while three of them are operational.

Bilal Shaikh said 40 branches will be opened in Sindh and 10 in other provinces.

Farmers may get a loan of up to Rs500,000 on Zarai Card, but only 10 per cent will be given as cash while the rest of the amount would be in the form of substance required to a farmer.

“The restriction of 10 per cent cash has been put to avoid misuse of money. Farmers may buy fertilizers and other requirements on this card,” said Bilal Shaikh.

For Benazir Card, a farmer would have to submit his passbook or keep land documents or provide at least two guarantors of Rs50,000 each.

The Sindh Bank will keep its 80 per cent focus on agriculture sector while 20 per cent advances could be made for corporate sector.

However, corporate loans will be syndicated.

The Bank would not provide large corporate loans alone.

The Sindh Bank was awarded licence in the first week of December 2010 as a capital of Rs10 billion was provided by the Sindh government.

In the wake of severe corruption in the Bank of Punjab, the licence was widely criticised by the banking experts.

The Bank of Punjab is still struggling to come out from massive corruption it faced during the previous government.

Bankers were also doubtful about the success of Sindh Bank on account of general banking environment in the country as most of banks have been earning by lending to the government.

Bankers said banking is facing a monopolistic situation since only five big banks earned 80 to 85 per cent of the profits of entire banking industry.

“We are going fast and we will achieve our target and expand the branch network across the country,” said Bilal Shaikh.

A number of small and medium sized banks have been facing serious problems of raising deposits, thus failing to meet the minimum capital requirement (MCR) as a condition of the State Bank.