New Delhi: “The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may not cut CRR, mandatory deposit requirement for banks, further in the immediate future and may opt for other instruments to infuse liquidity into the system,” a Finance Ministry official said.

“CRR was 9%. There was a headroom to cut it. But we cannot go on cutting CRR indefinitely,” the official said adding that the current liquidity situation is enough.

RBI has cut Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) by 2.5 percentage points to bring it down to 6.5% from 9% to infuse Rs1lakh crore into the cash-strapped system.

Besides, the central bank is also giving Rs25,000 crore to banks and others as the first instalment against their outgo on farm debt waiver scheme.

RBI has also opened a special window of Rs20,000 crore for mutual funds, of which over Rs5,000 crore has been availed of till yesterday.

The central bank is scheduled to come out with its mid-term monetary policy on 24 October and is widely expected to take some more steps to infuse liquidity.

The official said that the public sector banks are unlikely to come out with follow-on public offers due to bearish market conditions, but can raise funds through tier-II debts like subordinated bonds and convertible bonds.

“There is headroom for PSU banks to raise Rs77,000 crore this way,” he said.