By: Inamullah
Referring to the proceedings of Public Accounts Committee held on Tuesday (July 8, 2025), a section of electronic media has misreported the stance of Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) regarding missing/burnt loan files and amounts outstanding against these cases.
The fact is that as many as 27,537 loan case files were burnt in 2007 by protesters after the assassination of former prime minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Shaheed. The number of burnt files has gradually been reconstructed and reduced to 5201 by recovering the outstanding loan amount.
The amount outstanding and recoverable against the remaining 5201 burnt and 790 missing files (out of over 600,000 borrowers) is Rs. 1,167 million only, which comes to less than Rs.195,000/- per borrower as all these loans are small loans to farmers. As stated above ZTBL is recovering/adjusting residual amount in all above such cases in due course of time accordingly.
