The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has indicated that it will evaluate how much holdings of the banks under the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR) requirements can be considered as capital meeting the requirement for Basel III global banking rules.

The SLR stands at 24 percent but according to analyst estimates, it is about 29 percent of the banks' overall holding of SLR bonds. SLR includes deposits that banks are required to invest by the central bank in government debt and other approved securities.

Anand Sinha, a RBI deputy governor has said that the central bank is looking into the matter. According to estimates, state-run banks will need additional $162.9 billion in order to meet latest new capital norms and their growth requirements over next eight years.

Basel III norms require banks to increase their capital adequacy ratios and maintain top-quality capital at 7 percent of risk-weighted assets. Even as the banks in India have a higher adequacy ratios than the minimum total capital requirement under Basel III, many believe that they have to increase equity capital in order to meet top-level capital requirement.

Sinha said that the RBI will issue detailed guidelines for BASEL III implementation by December and will release a final framework in March next year. "The trajectory (for Basel III) would be decided by (the) RBI and banks together," he said.