The governments' market borrowings will not exceed Rs 5.5 lakh crore it had envisaged in the budget, as the needs of the Centre as well as the states will easily be met by this amount.
"Very clearly a sense that I got at the end of the meeting is that, we do not need more borrowings either from the Centre side or from the state side," Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla told reporters after a meeting with finance secretaries and finance commissioners of state governments.
The Centre's borrowings would be to the tune of Rs 4,50,000 crore, while states would mop up Rs one lakh crore.
Chawla, however, said that one or two states have expressed a desire that borrowing ceiling should be raised.
To weather the economic slowdown, the centre had allowed states greater freedom to borrow from the market, even if it meant that fiscal deficit would stretch to four per cent of their GDP from the earlier level of three per cent.
He said the general consensus was that the feeling is good enough.
Chawla further said the economic situation related to drought has caused concern but things are certainly improving. "We should be seeing better progress on growth in next six months or so."
He said some of the states have completed only part of their borrowings, while some have not started at all.
