Govt likely to roll back states' ability to borrow more, says report

India may deny any leeway to states wanting more headroom to borrow as the Centre aims to tighten fiscal policy in a bid to assuage global investors, people familiar with the matter said.

States’ borrowing, including those to undertake power sector reforms, is likely to be capped at 3.5 per cent of their gross domestic product for the fiscal starting April 1. That is lower than the 4 per cent cap for the current year, said the people. Finance ministry spokesman didn’t answer to calls to his mobile phone seeking comment.

Some provincial governments are opposed to the cut as it would mean less headroom to borrow especially at a time when revenues could take a hit due to an expected slowdown both home and abroad.

“If recession hits then revenues will drop and states will need to do more spending at the bottom of the pyramid to support people necessitating flexibility in market borrowing,” said Palanivel Thiaga Rajan, finance minister of the opposition-ruled Tamil Nadu.

New Delhi has already stopped compensating states for the switch to the Goods and Services Tax regime from this year. For states, though, as the economy recovered from the pandemic this year, revenues improved, leaving them to borrow less from the market.

States borrowed Rs 4 trillion ($49.3 billion) between April-November as against Rs 6.55 trillion projected for the first nine months of the current fiscal year.

Market borrowings by states were previously capped at 3 per cent of their GDP pre-pandemic, which was eased to 5 per cent in 2020-21 to help the states with extra resources during the peak of Covid. 

Since then, the Central government has been lowering the limit as recommended by the finance commission with an aim to keep the country’s overall fiscal deficit in check.