B. D. Narang in Calcutta on Tuesday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta, April 19: A large number of employees of the erstwhile Global Trust Bank (GTB) may lose their jobs if the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) implements the report on human resource alignment prepared by the National Institute of Bank Management (NIBM) in totality.

GTB had 1,300 people on its rolls when it was merged with OBC.

Following the amalgamation, OBC has paid previous GTB employees the salary they received prior to the merger.

OBC chairman and managing director B. D. Narang said, ?We are permitted, however, under the scheme of amalgamation to realign the remuneration of employees previously with GTB and continuing with us, with our existing employees of corresponding rank or status. We had appointed NIBM to prepare a report on how best to effect this realignment. NIBM has already tabled the report.?

OBC will start implementing the report from May 15 and the bank expects a realignment by December. ?The report will be placed before the OBC board for an approval on April 29,? said Narang.

The red herring prospectus filed by the bank, which is coming up with its second public offer, says that primarily because of this expected realignment of salaries, 367 of erstwhile GTB?s employees have resigned and the bank is not certain about the employment continuity of the GTB employees with the bank in the coming months.

Narang said the Reserve Bank of India has been informed that OBC will continue with these employees for three years.

?After that the OBC board will decide whether to continue with them,? the CMD added.

GTB is expected to register some operating profit from the quarter ending June 30, 2005. In the quarter ended March 31, 2005, it had suffered a loss of Rs 69 crore.

OBC has filed criminal suits against the GTB creditors amounting to Rs 984 crore. ?We expect to recover 30 per cent of this amount in the current fiscal,? Narang added.

Business target

OBC has set a target to achieve business worth Rs 1 lakh crore and a profit of Rs 1,000 crore in 2005-06. This will be the total business of the merged entity.

The bank had registered a business of Rs 76,000 crore on March 31, 2005.

?We have decided to engage all the 104 branches of GTB in lending advances. This will give a tremendous boost to our business,? added Narang.

The second public issue of GTB opens on April 25. The bank is offering 58,000,000 shares.