SBI chairman GG Vaidya said the bank wants its capital adequacy ratio to be well above 12 per cent. However, Vaidya said the plan to dilute the equity of the Reserve Bank of India in SBI has not been finalised as yet.

``Officially, the proposal is yet to be sent to the Government,'' he said.Vaidya was talking to newspersons after inaugurating the bank's first millennium branch at Dadar in central Mumbai. The branch will render customer service for 12 hours for all seven days in a week. He said nothing has been decided about the merger of the SBI with its seven associates. "If at all the merger plan is implemented, it will be done after due consultations with different trade unions of banks,'' Vaidya said.

Speaking about the ongoing technological upgradation of the branches of the bank as a part of a comprehensive `technology plan', Vaidya said the bank will set up 1000 anytime-anywhere branches across the country by the fiscal year 2002 in an effort to face the growing competition from the foreign banks and new generation private banks. "We will set up networking of such high-tech branches at selected centres to take on the competition in the areas so far dominated by the foreign and private banks," said. ``We are launching Internet banking in our NRI branchs shortly in Mumbai,'' he said.

The bank management would shortly select one among the seven consultants that are short-listed recently after a detailed presentation. The SBI would be spending about Rs 500-700 crore towards the implementation of technology plan in the next 5 to 10 years, Vaidya said. About the credit offtake improvement, Vaidya said till October end the bank's advances is pegged at Rs 2,900 crore, up by Rs 800 crore than the corresponding period of the last year. ``The credit offtake indicates a turn around in the economy," he remarked.

Vaidya was confident that the bank's annual target to deploy 13,000 crore can succeed by pushing housing and consumer loans in a big way.

The bank's deposits also shot up by Rs 11,000 crore against Rs 8,600 crore in the same period last year. The bank is also determined to recover Rs 500 crore from its existing non-performing assets (NPAs) and push down the NPA level below six per cent from its present level of over 7.6 per cent by the end of the current fiscal year, he observed.

With the installation of ATMs and extension of banking hours in 1363 branches, the bank is expected to expand its business volume three to four time in these units. By the year 2003, the bank would have 4000 computerised branches across the country covering over 85 per cent of its total business volume. At present, it has 86 ATM centres which would go up to 200 by March this year.