"The net profit of the bank during the current financial year is expected to be between Rs 14,000 crore and Rs 15,000 crore," SBI Chairman Pratip Chaudhuri told reporters here.

The profit this year would be considerably higher than Rs 11,700 crore registered last financial year, the SBI chief said, adding that the bank expected to retain Rs 7,400 crore profit during the last quarter as recorded in the previous quarter.

On SBI's performance in Odisha, Chaudhuri said the bank's advances were Rs 30,375 crore and priority sector advances 54 per cent, well beyond the benchmark of 40 per cent.

The cash-deposit ratio of SBI, which had 695 branches in Odisha, was at a healthy 70 per cent with deposit at Rs 42,989 crore, he said, adding SBI was the leader in self help group linkage.

The bank had so far achieved credit linkages of 2.66 lakh SHGs aggregating Rs 1750 crore, more than 80 per cent of the linkages of other banks in the state, he said. Stating that the number of SBI branches would soon be increased to 700, Chaudhuri said of the existing branches, 403 were in rural centres, 158 in semi-urban areas and 134 in urban centres.

"In other words, 81 per cent of our branches are in rural and semi-urban centres," he said, adding SBI had lead bank responsibilities in 19 of the 30 districts in Odisha.

Out of these, 14 were affected by left wing extremism (LWE), he added.