The Bangladesh House Building Finance Corporation (BHBFC) is going to open 60 branches across the country this month without recruiting adequate manpower beforehand, sources said.
Activities have already started unofficially at the branches, which will start providing services to people after the formal launching, said BHBFC officials.
"We are giving priority to financing for housing outside Dhaka and Chattogram metropolitan areas. So, the BHBFC is going to inaugurate the branches to achieve its goal," its Managing Director Debasish Chakrabarty told the FE.
Some officials, however, feared that the shortage of manpower would seriously hamper the activities of the branches.
The requisite number of manpower could not be appointed due to complexities in the recruitment process, they said.
It usually takes about two years to complete a recruitment process, they added.
Moreover, the BHBFC could not upgrade their employees regularly because of inadequate manpower, a top official of the state-run corporation said, wishing not to be named.
Asked, the BHBFC MD said, "We are now trying to manage to run activities at the branches with the existing manpower. We hope that there would be no crisis once the recruitment process is completed."
BHBFC sources said it sent a letter to the Bangladesh Bank (BB) several months back seeking more manpower for the corporation, as the central bank conducts and coordinates the recruitment process for all the state-run financial institutions and banks.
Contacted, Bangladesh Bank spokesperson Serajul Islam said the central bank is now going ahead with a recruitment process for the public financial institutions and banks through arranging a single examination for all.
The BB has scrapped the system of arranging recruitment tests for each institution separately, as it takes more time to complete the appointment process, he said.
Under the new method of unified examination system, preliminary and written tests have already been completed, he said.
The BHBFC will get new manpower soon after the viva-voice of the candidates takes place, he added.
BHBFC sources said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is expected to formally inaugurate the branches soon through a videoconference.
In recent years, BHBFC has witnessed a significant rise in disbursement of loans for housing outside Dhaka and Chattogram metropolitan areas.
The loans disbursed outside these two cities account for nearly 62 per cent of total house building loans granted until April of the last fiscal year, according to BHBFC data.
A person having a minimum monthly income of Tk 20,000 is eligible to get BHBFC loans in rural areas at 8.5 per cent interest rate.
The rate is 9.5 per cent for Dhaka and Chattogram metropolitan areas.
