KARACHI: Sindh Bank is expected to disburse loans worth Rs12 billion to various sectors during the year 2011 and will provide employment to 6,000 unskilled and semi-skilled people, informed Sindh Bank President Muhammad Bilal Shaikh.
Briefing the bank’s board of directors at the Chief Minister’s House on Monday, he said that it had been agreed that every small-scale factory availing Rs10 million loan will hire at least five employees, consequently generating livelihood for the people.
Fifty branches of the bank will be opened this year and every district, including divisional headquarters, will have a branch. In this connection, more than 1,000 staff is being recruited including 300 support staff, 350 graduates, 250 post-graduates and 100 senior officers, he informed.
Shaikh said that the Sindh Bank has started working and President Asif Ali Zardari inaugurated the first Naudero branch on December 26, 2010. He said the bank will increase commercial activity, industrialisation, stabilise population movement, generate employment opportunities and improve agricultural output and standard of living.
With regard to social development, people will be empowered, particularly women, and the bank will also support public-private partnership in infrastructure projects in coming years which will also supplement government’s efforts in rehabilitating flood victims, he added.
Shaikh said that all branches of Sindh Bank will be online, adding the bank will facilitate customers.
Earlier, Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, while presiding over the meeting, said that the objectives of the Sindh Bank is to help the people and common man in their efforts to boost agriculture productivity and industrial sector. This will lead to development in backward areas and accelerate economic activity, he added.
Shah said that concerted efforts should be made to enhance and spread branches of the bank in every nook and corner of the country, particularly in the province of Sindh. Shah said that people of interior parts of the province are taking interest, while it will be further feasible if some industrialists and traders are inducted as directors of the bank.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 4th, 2011.
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