The Telangana government has decided to raise another ₹2,000 crore open market borrowings (OMBs) through the auction of securities on Tuesday.
The State will participate in the auction to be conducted by the Reserve Bank of India on September 12 through e-Kuber platform for raising ₹1,000 crore each with tenures of 19 years and 22 years, respectively. The amount would take the total OMBs during the current financial year to ₹26,500 crore with two more auctions of securities remaining in the first half of the fiscal.
The development assumes significance in light of the Union Finance Ministry fixing a limit of ₹36,617 crore for market borrowings for the entire fiscal. The State will be left with an option of raising a little over ₹10,000 crore during the third and fourth quarters of the fiscal if the restrictions imposed on borrowings continue.
The Union Ministry said the limit had been fixed in line with the recommendations of the XV Finance Commission and as per the guidelines for the annual borrowing ceiling. The borrowings limit has been fixed at ₹57,813 crore for the current year but it had to be cut down to ₹42,225 crore as the State had over-borrowed during the preceding financial years.
The State could raise OMBs to the tune of ₹32,119 crore as against the projected ₹52,167 crore during the previous financial year, according to the figures available with the Comptroller and Auditor General of India. The State had ended up paying interest of ₹20,952 crore as against the ₹18,911 crore projected in the Budget for the financial year 2022-23, going by the provisional figures in the CAG report for the fiscal.
The State government had made a provision of ₹22,407 crore towards interest payment during the current fiscal but is likely to end up paying more going by the quantum of borrowings that are being raised by it to fulfil its commitments like Rythu Bandhu, Dalit Bandhu and crop loan waiver.
