Centre Crosses Wma Limit For The Fourth Time

The Union government has breached the ways-and-means advances (WMA) limit of Rs 10,000 crore set for the first six months (April 2001 to September 2001) for the fourth time.

As on June 8, 2001, the advances for the Centre stood at Rs 10,499 crore and this could trigger off an auction of a government paper this week to bring the advances back within prescribed limit.

The past three occasions, on which the Centre breached the WMA limit are -- April 6 (Rs 16,130 crore), April 13 (Rs 24,193 crore) and May 25 (Rs 13,413 crore).

The non-food credit, an indicator of industrial appetite for credit and extended by scheduled commercial banks, declined by Rs 6,931 crore to Rs 4,66,962 crore in the fortnight ended June 1, 2001 over the previous fortnight. Overall, the non-food credit has declined by Rs 14.002 crore to Rs 4,66,962 crore between May 1 and June 1.

Foreign exchange reserves were up by $ 95 million to $ 43.007 billion in the week ended June 9, 2001, over the previous week. The growth in forex reserves is mainly on account of an accretion of $ 95 million to the foreign currency assets, which as on the reporting week stood at $40.187 billion ($40.092 billion as on June 1). Gold reserves and special drawing rights were static at $ 2.816 billion and $ 4 million, respectively.

The demand deposits of the SCBs declined by Rs 1,753 crore to Rs 1,41,896 crore, while the time deposits rose by Rs 6,487 crore to Rs 8,61,137 crore in the fortnight ended June 1. Aggregate deposits of these banks were up by Rs 4,734 crore to Rs 10,03,032 crore during the period.

Money supply (M3) rose by 0.1 per cent (Rs 1,758 crore) to Rs 13,67,451 crore in the fortnight ended June 1, while the reserve money rose by 5.7 per cent (Rs 17,107 crore) to Rs 3,17,314 crore in the week ended June 8.