The target level set in the budget was Rs 79,375 crore during fiscal 1998-99, PNB Gilts said on Friday.

The government has mopped up 96.32 per cent of the target and with four months to go for this fiscal, "there are strong indications that the borrowing programme may well extend beyond the targeted levels," PNB Gilts, a primary dealer for government securities, said in its fortnightly report.

After the recent 20-year paper, which mobilised more than Rs 1,100 crore, the total government borrowings for the current fiscal stands at Rs 76,456.36 crore.

The report also said the dreaded fiscal slippage was round the corner this fiscal despite government assurances to the contrary. The government has set 5.6 per cent of gross domestic product as this year's fiscal deficit target.

PNBGilts has also forecast a spate of private placements by the government to mobilise resources as the "mirage of economic revival still eludes the country."

There could also be a huge shortfall in revenue collections, widening trade deficit, creeping inflation and the disinvestment targets going awry, the report said.