RBI questions IDBI's $500m ECB plan

Institutional sources said the central bank is of the opinion that IDBI's target is on the higher side, specially in the context of India's foreign exchange reserves being in excess of $92 billion.

They added that the RBI has pointed out that ICICI Bank received the nod to raise $300 million only last month after the proposal was held back for quite some time.

Meanwhile, the RBI has been going slow on approvals for a host of other ECB issues even though they are of less than $100 million each.

The apex bank has told the companies that it is awaiting a policy nod from the finance ministry on the issue, even though the loans awaiting the green signal are within the approval powers of Mint Road.

North Block is expected to carry out a comprehensive policy review of the ECB window, as the last such one was in 1999-2000.

The ECB plans that have been held up include loans asked for by NHPC, PFC and some other companies.

But the finance ministry has said that it has received no such request on these loans from the RBI. It has instead held that such loans should be cleared by the RBI on its own.

It has also said that a review of the ECB guidelines, including that of maturity and acceptable interest rate spreads, will take some time.