State Development Loans surge to Rs 3.2 trn till January, Maharashtra tops

The borrowings by various state governments through State Development Loans have gone up 8.7 per cent this financal year (till January-end). Total borrowings by the states in this period stood at Rs 3.24 trillion compared with Rs 2.98 trillion in the same period of FY17. In terms of volume of borrowings, Maharashtra topped with Rs 366 billion followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 342 billion) and Uttar Pradesh (Rs 338 billion), according to a study on 'Debt Market Review' by CARE Ratings. For January 2018, 27 states raised funds worth Rs 486 billion by way of State Development Loans which was 22 per cent higher than the amount raised by the states in the previous month. Average borrowing cost of states during January rose to 20-month high of 7.91 per cent.

On a month-on-month basis, it moved up 0.22 per cent. With respect to central government borrowings, government securities aggregating Rs 180 billion, 53 per cent higher than the auctions held in December 2017. During April-January 2018, the central government borrowings aggregated to Rs 5.77 trilion. This was Rs 170 billion or 3.04 per cent higher than the borrowings in the comparable period in the previous year (Rs 5.60 trillion). The average cost of borrowing for these auctions was at 7.06 per cent, 0.13 per cent lower than the average of 7.2 per cent in the corresponding period of last fiscal.