CII for 0.5% Bank Rate cut

new delhi: considering the depressed demand for commercial credit, cii has called for a 50 basis point reduction in bank rate in the forthcoming credit policy, which would signal a reduction in lending rates of banks. cii has based its suggestions for the slack season credit policy ‘02-03, on the planks of short-term liquidity and deeper structural reforms. in addition to the pruning of bank rate, the confederation has called for the formulation of a roadmap to reduce the requirement of maintenance of crr from the current level of 5.5 per cent of net demand and time liabilities (ndtl) to 3 per cent of ndtl. in the same vein, it has suggested a reduction of slr from 25 per cent of ndtl currently to 15 per cent. to ensure adequate export credit from banks, cii has asked for an increase in the export refinance amount available to banks from the rbi from the current 15 per cent to 25 per cent. since the forex market had stabilised to some extent, the limit for investment/borrowing from abroad may be raised to 25 per cent of tier-i capital from the current 15 per cent, according to cii.