Government to borrow Rs 1.87 lakh crore in Q1 through T-Bills

NEW DELHI: The government will borrow Rs 1.87 lakh crore through auctioning of Treasury Bills in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

The government will raise Rs 1.22 lakh crore through auction 91-day Treasury Bills during the April-June quarter, a Finance Ministry statement said.

Besides, the government plans to raise Rs 30,000 crore and Rs 35,000 crore through auctioning of 182 days and 364 days T-Bills, respectively.

T-bills are short term debt obligation and are issued through a competitive bidding process at a discount from the face value.

Last week, the government had announced it will borrow Rs 3.79 lakh crore from the market in the first half of 2012-13.

This was over 65 per cent of the total Rs 5.13 lakh crore the government budgeted to raise through market borrowings to finance its fiscal deficit during the fiscal.

The government proposes to bring down the fiscal deficit to 5.1 per cent of GDP in the current fiscal, from 5.9 per cent in 2011-12.

As per the indicative calender issued by the RBI last week, the government would be borrowing on an average Rs 15,000 crore every week in the first half of 2012-13.

During 2011-12, the government borrowed over Rs 5.1 lakh crore from the market. The borrowing had exceeded the budgeted borrowing target by over Rs 92,000 crore as high subsidy expenditure led to overshooting of government finances.