Govt to repay loans worth Rs 27,500 cr

Govt to repay loans worth Rs 27,500 cr

March 8: Centre is slated to repay loans amounting to about Rs 27,500 crore next fiscal while targetting a fresh market borrowing of Rs 81,268 crore during the same period.

Loans worth Rs 27,478.19 crore including dated securities, zero coupon bonds and low interest rate loans are due for discharge in the 2000-01 financial year, highly placed sources said here. In the process of repaying the loans, the government will have to borrow a higher amount of around Rs 81,268 crore next fiscal as compared Rs 77,065 crore this year, they added.

The loans that are to be repaid during the calender year 2000, comprises dated government securities worth over Rs 13,500 crore, the sources said adding that loans worth Rs 2,320.85 crore will be outstanding for the fiscal 2001. Of the total loan outstanding, sources said that the second series of `zero-coupon' bonds are to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore and the third series of similar bonds worth Rs 5,000 crore comes up for repayment in the next fiscal.

Apart from the zero coupon and dated securities, the government has to repay lower interest rate carrying loans worth Rs 1,017.10 crore, the sources said. On other capital payments, the sources said the government is scheduled to repay external loans worth Rs 9,173.37 crore in the next fiscal year against a receipt of Rs 9,129.23 crore. The government had obtained external assistance to the tune of Rs 9,615.68 crore during 1999-2000, while repaying Rs 8,710 crore.

In net terms, the external borrowing by the government stood at Rs 905.64 crore in the current fiscal year while expecting receipts of Rs 44.14 crore in the coming year, the sources added. The government is also expecting another Rs 13,539 croreby way of loans and advances recoveries, they said. While loan recoveries from state governments alone will amount Rs 10,517.58 crore, the centre also expects Rs 169.49 crore from Union territories in 2000-2001, the sources added.

In the current year, the central government expects to recover Rs 9,563 crore from state government and Rs 160.38 crore from Union territories. Public sector enterprises, sources said, owe the central government about Rs 2,783.12 crore in terms of loans and advances in the coming fiscal year. The government is slated to receive about Rs 2,935 crore from the PSEs in the current fiscal year.

The Union government also expects to recover loans worth Rs 68.81 crore from foreign governments in the next fiscal as against a higher target of Rs 78.25 crore this year, the sources added.