The Reserve Bank of India in its quarterly review meet on Tuesday cut the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 50 bps to ease tight liquidity pressure in the banking system. RBI kept repo and reverse repo rates unchanged at 8.5% and 7.5% respectively, despite mounting anxiety over slowdown in growth.
The cash reserve ratio, the proportion of deposits that banks have to hold with the RBI, is a popular instrument to inject cash into the system. It now stands at 5.5%.
Tuesday's cut lowers the CRR to 5.50 per cent from 6.00 per cent, where it had stood since April 2010, and releases Rs 32,000 crore ($6.4 billion) of liquidity into the banking system, the RBI said.