Mumbai: The RBI on Friday said the limit for Ways and Means Advances (WMA) for the central government for the second half of the financial year 2025-26 will be Rs 50,000 crore. The WMA are temporary advances given by the RBI to the central, state govts and UTs to tide over any mismatch in receipts and payments.
The WMA has been decided in consultation with the Government of India, the RBI said in a statement.
“RBI may trigger fresh floatation of market loans when the Govt of India utilises 75 per cent of the WMA limit,” it added. The RBI also said that it retains the flexibility to revise the WMA limit at any time taking into consideration the prevailing circumstances.
The interest rate on WMA will be the prevailing repo rate and on overdraft it will be 2 per cent above the repo rate.
The central government will borrow Rs 6.77 lakh crore in the second half of this fiscal, reducing the total borrowing for the current financial year by Rs 10,000 crore.
In the Budget for 2025-26, the government planned a gross borrowing of Rs 14.82 lakh crore. However, it has borrowed Rs 5,000 crore less in the H1 (April-September) and lowered the estimates for H2 (October-March) by a similar amount. Thus, the total borrowing for FY26 is estimated to be lower at Rs 14.72 lakh crore.