The government has raised Rs 5,000 crore from the money market, outside its scheduled borrowing programme for the first half of the current fiscal, to takeover the Reserve Bank's 59.73 per cent stake in State Bank of India (SBI) by the month-end.
"Government has raised additional money through bonds basically to finance purchase of central bank's stake in the SBI," Finance Minister P Chidambaram told reporters on Tuesday.
In his budget speech, the Finance Minister had announced that the government would take over the SBI from RBI at an estimated market value of Rs 40,000 crore to separate ownership and regulatory functions of the central bank.
Since the process has to be completed by June 30, the government has to arrange the money by that date.
Declining to specify, whether the government would raise additional money through bonds, he said, "We have to wait for the first installment of the advance tax collection, which is due on June 15."
The transaction, however, would be in the form of book entry and would not entail any net outgo from the exchequer.
The government also proposes to buy RBI's stake in the National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and National Housing Bank (NHB).
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