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The government on Thursday announced its plans to borrow Rs 6.61 trillion from the market through 21 weekly auctions in the second half of this financial year.
The borrowing is around 47 per cent of the gross market borrowing target of Rs 14.01 trillion and is in line with market expectations.
This includes issuing Rs 20,000 crore of sovereign green bonds.
The finance ministry, while releasing the calendar for issuing bonds, said borrowing would be over three-, five-, seven-, 10-, 15-,
30-, 40- and 50-year securities.
The share of borrowing under different maturities will be: Three-year (5.3 per cent), five-year (10.6 per cent), seven-year (7.6 per cent), 10-year (24.8 per cent), 15-year (13.2 per cent), 30-year (12.1 per cent), 40-year (15.9 per cent) and 50-year (10.6 per cent).
The finance ministry said the government would carry out switching or buying securities to smoothen the redemption profile.
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“Aided by the favourable outlook for revenues and a possible undershooting of the ambitious capex target, ICRA expects the government’s fiscal deficit to print in line with or mildly trail the FY2025 revised estimate of Rs 16.1 trillion or 4.9 per cent of GDP, at the current juncture,” said Aditi Nayar, chief economist, ICRA Ltd.
Nayar said borrowing appeared unlikely to exceed the level announced for the second half.
The government had announced its plans to borrow Rs 7.50 trillion from the market in April-September. It will borrow Rs 2.47 trillion through treasury bills, which have a maximum tenure of 364 days.
Weekly borrowing through treasury bills in the third quarter of 2024-25 is expected to be Rs 19,000 crore for 13 weeks. There will be Rs 7,000 crore under 91-day treasury bills, Rs 6,000 crore under 182-day treasury bills, and Rs 6,000 crore under 364-day treasury bills.
To take care of temporary mismatches in government accounts, the Reserve Bank of India has fixed the ways and means advances (WMA) limit for the second half at Rs 50,000 crore.
“As hitherto, all the auctions covered by the calendar will have the facility of non-competitive bidding under which five per cent of the notified amount will be reserved for the specified retail investors,” the finance ministry said.
In the Interim Budget, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a gross borrowing target of Rs 14.13 trillion. This was, however, reduced by Rs 12,000 crore in the Budget in July on account of robust revenue collection.
Gross borrowing this financial year is lower than the estimate of Rs 15.43 trillion last financial year.
The government has set a fiscal deficit target of 4.9 per cent of GDP this financial year.
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