As per the provisional and unaudited results, the net profit during the year was likely to be more than 200 per cent over the previous year. During 1996-97, bank made a profit of Rs 35.70 crore which was up from Rs 11.07 crore recorded during 1995-96.

Andhra Bank also registered the highest operating profit of Rs 157 crore during 1997-98 in its 75-year-old history. The operating profit was up by 180 per cent over the previous year.

The bank's capital adequacy ratio too moved up to 13 per cent as compared to 12.5 per cent last year, without any infusion of capital during the fiscal.As far as non-performing assets were concerned, the bank achieved a significant reduction in its NPAs, which was one of the lowest among the public banks.

Its net NPAs came down from 4.1 per cent in 1997 to 3.6 per cent in 1998. This, according to the bank, was achieved due to qualitative creditexpansion and recovery. The bank, it was pointed out, was all set to attain autonomy by fulfilling all the four criteria laid down by the government. These include net owned funds of more than Rs 100 crore, net NPAs of less than 9 per cent, net profits for three consecutive years and capital adequacy of more than 8 per cent.

The bank has also fulfilled 19 out of 26 parameters under the memorandum of understanding signed with the Reserve Bank. As far as the banking operations were concerned, deposits of the Andhra Bank reached a level of Rs 7,921 crore as on March 31, 1998. Total advances reached Rs 3,485 crore registering a growth rate of around 13 per cent.

The priority sector advances also made a quantum jump from Rs 1161 crore in 1977 to Rs 1396 crore as on the last Friday of March 1988. The priority sector advances constituted 44.3 per cent of the total advances against the RBI prescribed norm of 40 per cent.

The bank's advances to agriculture increased to Rs 616.66 crore in 1988 from Rs 521.55crore in 1977. Against the RBI norm of 18 per cent, the advances to agriculture worked out to be 19.6 per cent up from 18.6 per cent in 1977.