Govt borrowings not to spike interest rates, says Fin sec

"Don't see any spike in interest rates in foreseeable future," Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla told reporters when asked whether huge market borrowings of the government will jack-up interest rates.
On whether the government will go for extra borrowing to meet additional expenditure due to week monsoon, he said expenditure needs will be met by way of taxes and existing budgetary provisions.
"We don't need to borrow extra. We will get more by way of taxes and if the need be we will try to adjust within existing budgetary provisions," Chawla said on the sidelines of the meeting of Regional Rural Bank chiefs with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
He said, targets for the current fiscal of direct taxes have already been raised based on the performance during the first four months of 2009-10.
The Finance Minister has raised the target of direct tax collections to Rs four lakh crore for the current fiscal from the earlier Rs 3,70,000 crore.

In the first four months of the current fiscal direct tax collection stood at Rs 73,990 crore, about three per cent higher than Rs 71,648 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal.
Indirect tax collections are also likely to be better in the second quarter of the fiscal, after customs duty collections topped Rs 18,000 crore in the first quarter.
The government has pegged its market borrowings at a whopping over Rs 4.5 lakh crore for the current fiscal to meet its burgeoning expenditure, necessitated by the need to perk up the flowing down economy.