Mumbai, Oct 9 (KNN)  The State Bank of India, according to its new chief, has plans to create teams for the farm and  retail sector that will contact each and every defaulting borrower and ask them to repay.

Speaking to the press after taking charge as chief of the country’s largest bank, Arundhati Bhattacharya said that SBI intends to form teams and set up a mechanism by which every defaulter is approached individually and urged to repay. 

The only way in which the bank can improve return on equity and assets is by controlling NPAs, she said, firm in her opinion that non-performing managements should be changed.

The focus of her meeting with the press was to stress upon the fact that the bank will put in place various measures and use all possible weapons in their war against non-performing assets (NPAs).

Further, the bank would use information technology and address governance issues to ensure that NPAs are managed effectively.

"We will also be looking at how to cut down the time span that we normally take for resolving NPAs by cutting down processes so that the turnaround time is less," said the first woman chief of SBI.

While in office, Bhattacharya intends to bring down bad loans through recoveries, change management of defaulting companies, merge all associate banks, offer sabbatical for employees to take care of family emergencies, allow employees to move with their spouse; and maintain consistency in provisioning.

Among her challenges is to determine if defaults have peaked, ensure that resources needed by business are with different entities, reduce time consuming processes and generate additional capital, manage large employee base and HR policy with regard to transfers, and the need to forecast exigencies.

Bhattacharya is expected to address gender issues.  "As a woman, I think that some problems are peculiar to women. I would try and be more sensitive to them. When I was in SBI Caps, we introduced a 6-year sabbatical for employees without pay as against 13 months in SBI. Any employee can take three sabbaticals of two years each," she told the press.  However considering the small size of that organisation, sabbatical was available to only 5 per cent of employees on first come, first served basis. 

The new chief is fully aware that women normally take a break at least three times in their career.  "Whether I can replicate this sabbatical in SBI, I don't know," said Bhattacharya, having already decided to remove the limit on the number of transfers an employee can ask for on account of a spouse relocating.  (KNN/ES)