Daily News Roundup - Feb 17 2009

- The fiscal deficit is expected to touch 6% of GDP in FY09, the highest in seven years and drop 50bps to 5.5% in FY10. (BS)

- Centre’s tax revenues falls short of budgeted targets by almost Rs600bn. (BL)

- The Government would borrow an additional Rs450bn from RBI to meet the shortfall in financing during current fiscal. (ET)

- The Government ruled out imposing limit on stocks of sugar a trader can keep. (ET)

- The Government has increased budget outlay for power sector in 2009-10 by over 43% to ~Rs521.3bn. (FE)

- The Government has allocated over Rs990bn to infrastructure development schemes for 2009-10. (FE)

- National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is budgeted to mobilise Rs50bn through loans and bonds in 2009-10. (BL)

- Domestic traffic in January 2009 declined 14.6% as compared to the same period in the previous year. (BL)

- India Infrastructure Finance Company Ltd (IIFCL) plans to raise Rs27bn and to lend it to banks at 7.85%. It would refinance 60% of commercial bank loans for public-private partnership (PPP) projects in critical sectors over the next 18 months. (ET)