ZTBL abolishes all 49 regional offices, sets up 25 new zones
By Asad Cheema

ISLAMABAD—All 343 field offices, 49 regional offices of Zari Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) have been abolished and new 25 zones set up delegating more powers to zonal chiefs as part of the restructuring and transformation campaign aimed at making the bank commercially strong and viable and mobilization of resources.
Decision to this effect was announced by President of ZTBL, Rashid Akhtar Chughtai while addressing the regional managers conference here Tuesday.
He added of the 25 zones, 12 have been established in Punjab, 6 in Sindh, 4 in NWFP and 3 in Balochistan.
The Bank President said implementation of the plan would start from January next.
He added that appointments of zonal chiefs would be advertised in the national press and senior vice presidents and above officers would be given chance for the posts and if they do not come on merit the posts would be filled in from outside on merit.
He said the Board of Directors had approved the raise in salaries of employees from July 1 of the current financial year announced by the government for its employees in the Budget 2005-06.
Chughtai said, ZTBL has to perform business besides its normal function to cater for the credit facilities to the agriculturists.
The objective of zoning, he said was to give uniform treatment by abolishing all 49 Regional Offices of defunct ADBP and operationally divide the bank into twenty five zones, each to be headed by a Zonal Chief.
About future set-up of Zonal Offices and their jurisdiction with regard to branches, he said the criteria for establishment of zonal offices is based upon the factors included Volume of business, distance of branches from Zonal Offices, availability of ZTBL's owned buildings at various Zonal stations, Geographical proximity of regions to be merged, work load/future business potential and average number of branches per zone.
He added that Bank's President would delegate such administrative and financial powers to the zones as deem fit for efficient and effective operations of field offices.
About role of the Zonal chief, he said that Zonal Chief being head of the zone represents middle management and controller of operational activities in the field.
He added that role of Zonal Chief is of immense importance for achieving operational excellence and attainment of operational goals in three fold activities namely disbursement, recovery and resource mobilization through his personal supervision, guidance and effective monitoring of branches.
The President of the ZTBL said that the success of organization depends upon how effective Zonal Chiefs are and how they play their due role in supervising and motivating the field staff.
Keeping in view the significance of the office of Zonal Chief, following role has been assigned for achieving organizational goals and objectives:
Marketing /business:- Development of business of branches through ensuring substantial increase in sound lending, expanding outreach.