Bank of Maharashtra has decided to open eight new branches in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh .The Chandigarh region of the bank will open these branches in the current fiscal year to increase its focus on north India.

These eight branches include two branches in Himachal Pradesh at Una and Mandi, two in Gurgaon in Haryana, and one each at Chandigarh, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Zirakpur in Punjab. Anil Thakur, regional manager, Chandigarh region said that at present the bank has 18 branches in Punjab, 17 in Haryana, 3 in Chandigarh, two in Jammu and Kashmir and 1in Himachal Pradesh.

He said that for the convenience of customers, all these 41 branches under Chandigarh region were CBS branches offering connectivity of all branches. The region also has three specialised foreign exchange located at Panipat in Haryana and Amritsar and Ludhiana in Punjab.

He informed that during year 2007-08, the Bank of Maharashtra had a business of about Rs 2000 crores from Chandigarh region with Rs 1080 advances and Rs 920 deposits. He said the bank was projecting a growth of about 35% this fiscal which would take total business to Rs 2700 crores having advances of Rs 1,400 crores and deposits of Rs 1,300 crores.