Government borrowing target fails to enthuse market

Bond market, however, happy with the government's commitment to keep deficits under check

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech said net borrowing for fiscal 2017-18 would be Rs 3.48 lakh crore, substantially less than what the bond market was expecting. 

The bonds, however, did not react much as the market was waiting for the details, especially as the government kept the deficit for the next year more or less at the level the market expected it. The fiscal deficit, at 3.2 per cent of the gross domestic product, is impressive, but then the market anyway expected the government to keep it at 3.3 per cent. 

When details came out and the