Srinagar, Aug 26: J&K Bank Chairman Dr Haseeb A Drabu is resigning today after he was asked by the state government to put in his papers. Drabu’s term was ending later next year.
Informed sources told Greater Kashmir that Dr Drabu was conveyed the decision of J&K government soon after the cabinet meeting was over. A senior officer from the Finance Department was sent to J&K Bank’s Corporate Headquarters to deliver the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s message to Dr Drabu. No reasons were, however, given for the drastic decision.
Dr Drabu was not available for comment.
The issue of asking Dr Drabu to step down had not, however, come up in today’s cabinet meeting. However, after the cabinet meeting was over, chief minister is understood to have passed the directions.
Dr Drabu is understood to have conveyed that he will put in his papers on the next working day. He has not asked for the reasons that forced the beleaguered chief minister to ask one of the most competent persons in the state to leave the office.
The top notch economist that Kashmir has ever produced had taken over the state’s only listed company after Muhammad Yousuf Khan completed his tenure after the PDP government took over in late 2002.
Dr Drabu had offered to put in his papers soon after Omar Abdullah took over as J&K’s chief executive in 2008 but Omar had asked him to continue. However, he resigned as state’s economic adviser paving way for retired IAS officer Jalil Ahmad Khan to take over.
Government decision to relieve Dr Drabu at a time when Kashmir is reeling under severe economic crisis has set the tongues wagging everywhere from Mumbai, India’s economic capital to Srinagar. While people were expecting that the premier financial institution would offer a way out for managing the economic mess that the unrest has created in last 11 weeks, the rolling of its top executive has raised many questions.
Earlier, during the peak of the crisis state government had asked the J&K Bank not to keep its branches open on the days when separatists were keeping the markets open.
Dr Drabu whose contribution to his home state was increasing the credit flow to Kashmir from Rs 1200 crores in 2005 summer to Rs 12000 crores in 2010 was facing a lot of music for “filling the belly” of the people. He has single-handedly faced the challenge and ensured that J&K bank is permitted to function the way all other banks function across India.
J&K Bank’s business has tripled during Dr Drabu’s tenure and the bank was aiming at Rs 1,000 crore profit by the next fiscal. During his tenure, the profitability of the Bank has shot up five times from Rs 100 crore in 2004-2005 to Rs 512 crore in 2009-2010. In June this year, J&K Bank achieved the distinction of being the first zero NPA bank in the country. As per rating agencies, J&K Bank is rated as one of the three most stable bank’s in India. During his period it became one of top 100 companies of India.
Under Drabu’s leadership, some of the world’s best and prestigious Foreign Institutional Investor’s from across the globe have invested in the J&K bank shares. As per latest information available, Foreign Institutional Investors own 33 per cent of the Bank.
Though Dr Drabu was rediscovered for Kashmir by Dr Farooq Abdullah when he was taken as member of the Godbole Committee on Economic Reforms, he was actually appointed by state government as economic adviser in 2005.  For the next three years he changed the state’s financial architecture and helped state come out of the ‘financial sins’ it had gotten used to for many decades.
His contribution in helping bring out a change was clear by managing multi-lateral funding to the state by negotiating a deal with the Asian Development Bank and drafting the Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan (PMRP).  He has been part of almost all the initiatives on Kashmir’s economic front especially the C Rangarajan panel on identifying long term developmental plans – a report that is gathering dust with the central government.
Even though his prime concern after Omar’s takeover was the bank but he continued intervening in crucial affairs in the interest of the J&K state. His last intervention was creating a chain of IT kiosks that function as CSC centres across the state. These centres were termed to be the model centres luring the RBI to convert them into business correspondents. The CSC is a centrally funded project.

Lastupdate on : Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:30:00 GMT
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