Foreign department general manager RC Royappa said that though the bank had struck several deals on Monday from Mumbai, the role of the Calcutta office would not be diluted in any way. The Calcutta office would continue to handle all the other operations, including accounting transactions, except for interbank transactions.

The decision to shift the forex cover operations was a result of the McKinsey study which advocated integration of the treasury and foreign departments of the bank under one roof. SBI had earlier relocated its treasury operations to Mumbai.

Royappa said the decision to shift the forex cover operations was a purely commercial one. According to him, even in this age of speedier communications network, a difference of seconds made a lot of difference.

SBI's decision to move its operations had attracted strongprotests from the city's foreign exchange brokers, who were of the opinion that the entire foreign department in Calcutta would gradually become defunct.

The West Bengal government also drew the attention of the successive central governments to the issue.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal finance minister, Asim Dasgupta, on Tuesday said that he had sought details from the union finance ministry on the shift of SBI's forex cover operations to Mumbai.

The minister told newspersons here that he was surprised to learn that SBI had shifted its inter-bank foreign exchange operations from the city, although the bank's chairman, MS Verma, had recently assured chief minister Jyoti Basu that the controversial decision was being put on hold.