The government’s domestic borrowing increased substantially in the third quarter of the current fiscal year due to higher spending in the development programmes, officials said.

It was also contributed by the maturity of a good number of treasury bills, compelling the government to pay back.

The net domestic borrowing stood at Tk18,419 crore as on March 13, almost double from Tk9,881 crore the government borrowed till December last, according to a document the Dhaka Tribune obtained yesterday. The March figure is 54% of the total budgetary estimate for the current fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the external credit rose to equivalent Tk14,189 crore, which is 67.8 % of total expected assistance as estimated for the fiscal 2013-14, according the central bank statistics. It was only 46.9 % as of March last fiscal year.

The current budget had estimated domestic borrowing target of Tk33,964 crore and foreign loan of Tk23,729 crore to finance the budgetary expenditure.

The borrowing status was discussed at meeting of the Cash and Debt Management Committee of the finance division on April 24, with Finance Secretary Falze Kabir in the chair. The meeting decided to speed up the disbursement of budgetary allocation as the end of the current fiscal year came closer.

The meeting expressed satisfaction, however, as the domestic borrowing remains lower than the same period of previous fiscal year.

The Planning Commission officials said the project implementation agencies could spend only 43% between the months of July and March from the original ADP allocation of Tk65,872 crore for the current fiscal.

The rate of implementation was 6% lower than that of the same period of the last fiscal.

Earlier, the Cash and Debt Management Committee decided to borrow Tk4,000 crore from the banking system against the budgetary estimate of Tk25,993 crore.

The bank borrowing by the government would now stand at around Tk30,000 crore in outgoing fiscal year as the committee estimated.

The government received Tk7,461 crore from net sales of national savings certificates till March 13 this year. In the first six months of fiscal 2013-14, the government received Tk3,857 crore from net sales of national savings certificate, which was only Tk177 crore in the same period of fiscal 2012-13.

The government also received Tk10,512 crore from treasury bill and bond Tk11,977crore till March 14 this year.