For the week ended April 9, the Centre overshot its WMA limit by Rs 1,969 crore. On April 16, the outstanding was Rs 161 crore more than the WMA limit. The Centre's WMA limit for 1999-2000 has been kept unchanged at Rs 11,000 crore for the first half of the fiscal and Rs 7,000 crore for the second half, both lower than than the 1997-98 limits by Rs 1,000 crore. The WMA borrowing rate is linked to the RBI's bank rate. Overdraft on WMA attracts a higher rate of Bank rate plus two per centage.

The ways and means advance account is a withdrawal facility provided by the RBI to Government to meet temporary mismatch in cash flows. Under the agreement between centralbank and Government if ways and means advances rise beyond 8, 250 crore the Government must make fresh issue of security to repay the account.

The commercial banks had total Rs 3,69,913 crore of credit outstanding on May 7 up by 0.2 per cent compared with the previous two week period. However the non-food credit which is up by Rs 1,141 crore over the last year but has decreased by Rs 1106 crore during the previous fortnight is pegged at Rs 3,49,851 crore as on May 7.

The total commercial bank's deposit base has gone up by Rs 992 crore to RS 7.26,512 crore. The deposit include Rs 17,945 crore on account of proceeds from Resurgent India Bond issue. Excluding these proceeds the growth rates in aggregate deposits is estimated at 16 per cent. The time deposits were up by Rs 5,273 crore demand deposits showed a decline of Rs 4,281 during this period.