"We have planned a total resource mobilisation of Rs 2,000 crore during current fiscal out of which Rs 1,000 crore would be mopped up from domestic market and the rest through external commercial borrowings route (ECB)," chairman and managing director of PFC Uddesh Kohli said.

The mobilisation of resources from the foreign market will be in two tranches, one with $100 million with a green shoe option of $50 million and the rest through a second tranche.

For the first tranche of $100 million, PFC has already written to over a dozen bankers for arranging the funds and they are expected to respond by May 14, he said.

"We hope to finalise the bankers by end of this month and the second tranche of $100 million would be tapped depending up on the market conditions in this year," hesaid.

The corporation has written to bankers like State Bank of India, CitiBank, Bank of America, ING Bearings, ABN Amro and HSBC among others, he said.

Kohli said these bankers were supposed to submit their response for the $100 million ECB by April 26, but, PFC had to extend the date to May 14 due to political uncertainty.

"If we had asked for the bids during the time of political uncertainty, the interest rates could be fluctuating and would not have been favourable to PFC," he said.

With regard to raising of funds from the domestic market, PFC is talking to about eight to 10 national banks including State Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, Jammu and Kashmir Bank and Indian Overseas Bank for getting funds at the best possible rates.

PFC is the only financial institution exclusively catering to funding requirements of various power utilities in the country. The corporation's sanctions as on March 31 this year was at 3,339 crore while disbursements were at Rs 2,479 crore as against that ofRs 2,922 crore and Rs 2,026 crore respectively during 1997-98.

PFC plans to maintain growth rate of 30 per cent to achieve disbursement of over Rs 5,000 crore by 2001-02.