Tuesday, October 25 2005 17:45 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: The Reserve Bank today (Oct 25, 2005) said the market borrowing programme of the Central Government has so far remained consistent with the projections set out in the union budget.

"The revenue deficit and gross fiscal deficit of the Centre during April-August 2005 accounted for about 78 per cent and 57.1 per cent of the budget estimates for 2005-06 as compared with 82.6 per cent and 38.2 per cent respectively in the corresponding period a year earlier," it said.

RBI said the market borrowing programme of the Centre as also the states, envisaged for 2005-06, was higher than that in the previous year.

"Underlying liquidity conditions and shifts in banks' portfolio preferences in favour of the credit, has, however entailed some hardening of yields," RBI said in its mid-term review of annual policy here.

It also mentioned that continuous huge borrowings from the market by the Centre and the states pose concerns for the efficient conduct of debt management as well as for monetary operations, it said.

RBI has also pointed that Scheduled Commercial Banks' investment in Government and other approved securities at Rs 14,283 crore in the first half of 2005-06 was lower than that of Rs 28,256 crore in the corresponding period last year, partly on account of the pick-up in credit demand.