Ways and means advances (WMA) to the government crept close to the outer limit of Rs 11,000 crore for the first half of financial year 1998-99. Advances swelled to Rs 10,463 crore for the week ended April 10 from Rs 8,231 crore on April 3. The RBI floated a Rs 4,000-crore eight-year paper on April 15 as under the WMA agreement the government is required to float a new paper as soon as 75 per cent of the Rs 11,000 crore WMA limit is breached.

Aggregate deposits grew despite the fact that banks indulge in window dressing during the last fortnight of the financial year to show a healthy deposit growth.

According to the Weekly Statistical Supplement of the Reserve Bank of India, in the previous financial year, demand deposits had fallen in the first fortnight, but in the new fiscal the demanddeposits have risen. While demand deposits fell by Rs 4,384 crore in the previous year, these deposits shot up by Rs 2,197 crore in the present financial year.

Aggregate deposits during the fortnight increased by 1.4 per cent or Rs 8,326 crore during the first fortnight of financial year 1998-99. Year-on-year growth was pegged at 19.7 per cent as deposit growth surged by 1,00,203 crore to touch Rs 6,09,674 crore. "This shows that the deposit growth during the last financial year has been robust and there was not much need to window dress by banks," a banking analyst in a leading bank said. The RBI is likely to fix a target of 20 per cent deposit growth for the current financial year.

Credit flow in the fortnight also increased by 1.4 per cent. Non-food credit rose by Rs 4,773 crore (1.5 per cent) to Rs 3,14,101 crore. The Reserve Bank is likely to peg the credit growth for the current financial year at 20 per cent. Last year it fell short of the target of 20 per cent on account of poor creditofftake.

The foreign currency reserves increased $150 million during the week ended April 17 to touch $29.47 billion. The foreign currency assets of the RBI gained by an identical amount to touch $26.41 billion. Gold and SDR balances remained unchanged during the year.

According to the supplement, the RBI had mopped up Rs 19,416 crore during the week ended April 10 while it did not conduct any reverse repo.