Pune (Maharashtra), Oct 3 (IANS): The Bank Of Maharashtra (BoM) has closed 51 branches across the country as part of cost-cutting measures in the banking industry, an official said on Wednesday.

All the closed branches were in urban centres and were declared unviable and incurring huge losses, said the official of the Pune-headquartered public sector bank.

The senior official said on the condition of anonymity that these 51 branches had been merged with neighbouring branches.

This is the first such measure initiated by any public sector bank in Maharashtra. The BoM has around 1,900 branches all over India.

The BoM said the closure decision was taken for public convenience.

These shut branches are in Thane (7), Mumbai (6), Pune (5), Jaipur (4), Nashik and Bengaluru (3 each), Amravati, Latur, Aurangabad, Jalgaon, Nagpur, Satara, Hyderabad and Chennai (2 each), Noida, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Raipur, Goa, Solapur and Kolhapur (1 each).

The IFSC Codes and MICR codes of these branches have also been cancelled and all existing bank accounts in these units have been transferred to the branches into which they have been merged.

All customers at these closed-down branches have been directed to deposit their old chequebooks by November 30 so as to enable issuance of new ones.

The BoM cautioned that since the old IFSC/MICR Codes have been spiked and shall be discontinued from December 31, the customers should conduct all banking transactions only with the new IFSC/MICR Codes.