The deposits of the zone had surged by over 60 per cent in the last two- and-a-half years giving an annual growth of over 18 per cent during the period, said Khurana.

The deposit of the zone which stood at Rs 1,869 crore in March, 1996 jumped to Rs 2,879 crore in September, 1998 and further to Rs 2,971 crore as on date, he said.

Even after October this year till date, ``we have mobilised deposits of over Rs 100 crore which is the highest among all the zones of the bank'' Khurana added.

He said the zone was poised to achieve or even surpass the deposit budget of Rs 3,160 crore fixed for the current financial year as it had already leaped to Rs 2,971 crore as on date. Speaking about the country-wide performnce of the bank, Khurana said that the bank was set to achieve profit of over Rs 450 crore during the current fiscal year 1998-99 despite recessionary trends.

He said that the PNB's net profit had shown impressive increase of 20 per cent at Rs 228 crore in the first half of 1998-99 financial year as compared to Rs 190 crore during the corresponding period of 1997-98.

``we, therefore, expect a profit of over Rs 450 crore durng the year ending on March 31, 1999,'' he said.

Khurana said the total deposits of the bank as on December 31, 1998 stood at Rs 37,714.6 crore showing a growth of 0.59 per cent ovr last year. Khurana said determined efforts were on for not only reducing the non-performing assets (NPAs) ``but also taking all pre-emptive steps for prevention of any likely NPAs.''

He said the gross NPA of PNB's Bihar zone stood at an unhealthy Rs 236.10 crore which was 33.86 per cent of the total credit. ``Rigorous efforts are being made for recovery in all non-performing accounts,'' he contended.

Referring to low credit deposit ratio (CDR) of banks in Bihar, Khurana said the PNB chairman, Rashid Jilani would hold a high-level meeting with the officials of Bihar zone to make indepth study of the reasons behind the problem tomorrow.

He said union finance minister Yashwant Sinha had also convened a high-level meeting of top officials of banks operating in Bihar in a bid to evolve a strategy to improve CDR, on January 7, 1999.