New Delhi: The Centre on Friday sharply increased its gross borrowing programme for FY21 to ₹12 trillion for FY21 from the budgeted ₹7.8 trillion, signalling major slippage in fiscal deficit amid rising pressure on both revenue and expenditure fronts owing to the Covid-19 pandemic. “The estimated gross market borrowing in the financial year 2020-21 will be ₹12 lakh crore in place of ₹7.80 lakh crore as per BE 2020-21.
The above revision in borrowings has been necessitated on account of the COVID-19 pandemic," the Reserve Bank of India said in a statement.
On 31 March, then economic affairs secretary Atanu Chakraborty had unveiled the borrowing calendar for FY21 holding that government will frontload its borrowing programme by issuing