Wma Drawals Come Down By Rs 6574 Crore

Ways and means advances (WMA) from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to the central government have come down by Rs 6,574 crore during the week ended July 27 to Rs 4,715 crore.

Though the figure is well below the upper limit of Rs 10,000 crore, dealers still expect the central government to conduct an auction of government security this week.

"There was an outflow of Rs 5,600 crore on July 28 on account of redemption of the 10.85 per cent 2001 paper. Moreover, salary payments to government employees during the first week of the month and interest payments might have caused another Rs 7,000-8,000 crore of outflows. Hence, the WMA figure as on August 4 should stand around the Rs 15,000 crore mark," explained the chief dealer of a private sector bank.

Loans and advances to the state government fell by Rs 1,183 crore during the week to Rs 3,213 crore.

Foreign exchange reserves of the Reserve Bank of India increased by $78 million during the week ended July 27, 2001 to $43.682 billion. The growth in forex reserves was mainly on account of an increase of $73 million to the foreign currency assets to $40.875 billion. Gold reserves remained unchanged at $2.798 billion, while the special drawing rights reserve increased by $5 million to $9 million.

Non-food credit of the banking industry went up sharply by Rs 3,952 crore during the fortnight ended on July 13 to Rs 4,72,269 crore. This is of significance as the rise in non-food credit offtake in the current fiscal till the end of the previous fortnight was negative at Rs 3,126 crore.

The surge in credit offtake has offset the earlier decline, as the net non-food credit offtake as on July 13 stood at Rs 826 crore. During the corresponding period of the last fiscal, the growth was Rs 13,054 crore.

Food-credit increased by Rs 438 crore during the fortnight to Rs 50,738 crore. Aggregate credit outstanding of the banking sector increased by Rs 4,390 crore to Rs 5,23,047 crore.

Aggregate deposit of commercial banks went up marginally by Rs 2,788 crore (0.3 per cent) during the fortnight ended July 13 to Rs 10,15,862 crore. Demand deposits declined by Rs 3,592 crore while time deposits increased by Rs 6,380 crore.

The investment portfolio of scheduled commercial banks increased by Rs 4,390 crore (2.2 per cent) to Rs 4,02,810 crore.

The growth would have been more but for a fall in investments in other approved securities (except government securities) by Rs 30 crore to Rs 30,635 crore. Investments in the government securities, however, grew by Rs 8,653 crore to Rs 3,72,175 crore.