The cut-off price of the bonds were a shade higher than the market expectations as the dealers were expecting the cut-off price of the 2003 Government of India security at Rs 103.99 Rupees and the 2006 paper at Rs 107.62.

With the Monday's twin auction, the Reserve Bank of India has completed around 19 per cent of the budgeted gross borrowings of the Government for 2000-01. The gross borrowing programme for the fiscal 2001 is pegged at Rs 1,17,800 crore. For the 2003 paper, the RBI received 183 bids for Rs 4,897 crore at the auction of which it had accepted 76 for the notified Rs 2500 crore. Partial allotment at the auction was 71 per cent on 13 bids while the weighted average price was Rs 104.06.

For the 2006 paper, there was no devolvement on the primary dealers or the RBI. The central bank received 208 bids worth Rs 6125.7 crore and it accepted 75 bids for Rs 2500 crore. The partial allotment at the auction was 99 per cent on 19 bids while the weighted average price was Rs 107.65.

Earlier on Monday, the central bank set the underwriting commissions for primary dealers at four paise and five paise per Rs 100 for the 2003 and 2006 bonds, respectively, a primary dealer said. Even though the RBI has been trying to change the maturity profile of the Government debt by focussing on long dated papers, the central bank announced the auction of relatively shorter maturity papers last week as the longer tenor papers had failed to evoke a good response despite adequate liquidity in the system. Dealers are expecting announcement of a ten-year paper auction sometime next week.

Traditionally, over 80 per cent of the Government borrowing programme gets completed in the first half of the fiscal year.