Krishnamurthy V Subramanian: ‘Possible to raise $60 bn by listing govt bonds overseas’

“I recognise that this money can’t come immediately but may come later half of the year or next year. But that gives us the opportunity to structure the borrowing plan in terms of maturity etc to be able to finance the deficit and also do it in a way that the cost of borrowing doesn’t become very large,” he added.

In March, the RBI announced the opening up of key government securities to full foreign investment in a bid to find a place in global bond indices. The Centre had budgeted gross market borrowing of Rs 7.8 lakh crore for FY21 and had recently announced plan to borrow 62.6 per cent of it in the first half itself. However, its plans have gone haywires due to the virus crisis. The economy could grow at 1.5-2 per cent in FY21, with a contraction in the first half. This will be followed by a V-shaped recovery, he said. —FE