Calcutta, April 29: Uco Bank’s net profit for 2005-06 has slipped to Rs 197 crore from Rs 346 crore in the previous year.

The bank attributed the decline in earnings to a rise in depreciation and amortisation expenses to Rs 115 crore and an increase of Rs 53 crore in provisioning for standard assets.

However, its total business for the year increased 18.86 per cent to Rs 92,361 crore and operating profit was up marginally at Rs 852 crore against Rs 838 crore a year ago.

Total deposits of the bank has grown only 10.26 per cent to Rs 54,544 crore from Rs 49,470 crore in 2004-05. Against this, advances grew 33.94 per cent to Rs 37,817 crore from Rs 28,234 crore.

“The lower growth in deposits was due to the conscious decision of the bank to fund advances through increased borrowings from the market at a cheaper cost and reduction of investments,” the bank said in a statement.

However, the good growth in advances helped the bank increase its market share to 2.38 per cent from 2.28 per cent as on March 31, 2005.

The spectacular growth in advances vis-?-vis deposits led to a decline in Uco Bank’s capital adequacy ratio. The bank’s CAR as on March 31, 2006 fell to 11.12 per cent from 11.26 per cent in the previous year.

However, the bank has been able to lower its gross non-performing assets to 3.27 per cent of gross advances from 4.96 per cent a year ago.

The bank made a cash recovery of Rs 481 crore from its sticky assets. In 2004-05, the recovery amount was Rs 399 crore.