The government on Wednesday said it has decided to make additional borrowing of ₹50,000 crore this fiscal through dated securities, a move that may put burden on the fiscal deficit target of 3.2 per cent of GDP.

However, there will be no change in the net borrowing as envisaged in the Budget for 2017-18, a Finance Ministry statement said.

After the review of the borrowing programme with the RBI, it was decided that “the government will raise additional market borrowings of ₹50,000 crore only in fiscal FY’18 through dated Government securities.”

Besides, it will trim down the Treasury Bills from present collections of ₹86,203 crore to ₹ 25,006 crore by March 2018. T-Bills are securities with short-term duration of less than one year while dated securities have maturity of over five years.

“The government will thus, between now and March 2018, not be raising any net additional borrowing (T-Bills will be run down by ₹61,203 crore and additional G-Sec borrowing will be ₹ 50,000 crore),” it said.

In the Budget for 2017-18, gross and net market borrowing were pegged at ₹5.80 lakh crore and ₹4.23 lakh crore respectively, with ₹3.48 lakh crore being raised (net) from dated Government securities and ₹2,002 crore from T-bills, a Finance Ministry statement said.

Noting that borrowings till December 26, 2017, have been conducted in line with the borrowing calendar fixed for the fiscal, it said, gross and net market borrowings are ₹5,21,000 crore and ₹3,81,281 crore, excluding buyback/switches, respectively as on December.

As against the budgeted net T-bills receipt of ₹2,002 crore, net collections till December 26, 2017 are ₹86,203 crore, it said.

Fiscal deficit

The government had pegged the fiscal deficit target of ₹3.2 per cent of the GDP for the current fiscal. Additional borrowing by the government may have impact on the fiscal math.

Since the revenue collection from the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is slightly lower than the expected in the last two months, the additional borrowing would help bridge the shortfall.

The GST collections slipped to their lowest in November as rates were cut on dozens of goods to make the new national sales tax regime more acceptable.

Total collections under the GST, which is the amalgamation of the excise duty, service tax, VAT and several other indirect taxes, in November slipped for the second straight month to ₹80,808 crore, down from over ₹83,000 crore in the previous month.

The revenue collections in October were ₹83,346 crore, down about ₹12,000 crore from the September figure of ₹95,131 crore.

The statement further said, revised G-sec and T-Bill calendar for the fourth quarter of 2017-18 are being notified.

The revised G-Sec borrowing would be ₹15,000 crore each last five weekly auctions of this fiscal ending on February 9, 2018.

The revised T-Bill borrowing will be ₹14,000 crore each in first 13 weeks of 2018 ending on March 28.