Section 16: Offices, branches and agencies

(1) Unless otherwise provided by the Central Government, by notification in the Official Gazette, the Central Office of the State Bank shall be at [Mumbai, and shall also be known as Corporate Centre].

(2) The State Bank shall have local head offices in2[Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai] and at such other places in India as the Central Government, in consultation with the Central Board, may determine.

(3) The State Bank shall maintain as its branches or agencies, all branches or agencies of the Imperial Bank which were in existence [in India] immediately before the appointed day, and no such branch may be closed without the previous approval of the Reserve Bank.

(4) The State Bank may establish branches or agencies at any place in or outside India in addition to the branches or agencies referred to in sub-section (3).

(5) Notwithstanding anything contained in sub-section (4), the State Bank shall establish not less than four hundred branches in addition to the branches referred to in sub-section (3) within five years of the appointed day or such extended period as the Central Government may specify in this behalf, and the places where such additional branches are to be established shall be determined in accordance with any such programme as may be drawn up by the Central Government from time to time in consultation with the Reserve Bank and the State Bank, and no branch so established shall be closed without the previous approval of the Reserve Bank.