Bank deposits have continued to lag credit off take for yet another fortnight, way behind the central bank's comfort levels. Aggregate deposits mobilised by commercial banks increased by Rs 43,754 crore over a fortnight to Rs 65.7 lakhcrore on February 8 while loan disbursals increased by Rs 48,677 crore to Rs 51lakhcrore. 

At the current levels, the annual year-on-year growth in deposit and credit works out to 13.2% and 16.4%, respectively. While credit growth is within the central banks target of 16% for the year, deposit growth continues to lag behind the central bank's comfort level of 15% for the year.

Bankers as well as the central bank are worried over the widening gap between credit growth and deposit growth, which has been creating pressure on liquidity of late.

The wedge between deposit and credit growth was "one of the structural reasons for the liquidity deficit. And that also explains the reluctance of banks or their inability to reduce deposit rates, which is just as well, because even as we want lending rates to come down for investment purposes, we want deposit rates to stay as high as possible to garner savings," RBI governor D Subbarao had said at the post policy media conference on January 29.

"So, I would worry about the wedge from a liquidity management point of view, but I would not worry about deposit rates being too low," he has added.