Govt to buy back $2.2 bln bonds - RBI

Govt to buy back $2.2 bln bonds - RBI

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India will buy back up to 100 billion rupees ($2.2 billion) of bonds on June 21 to support liquidity conditions after a cash shortage sent overnight rates up near the central bank's main lending rate.

After market hours on Friday, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said it will buy back the 12.25 percent bonds maturing in 2010, 11.30 percent 2010 and 6.57 percent 2011 bonds.

The central bank had bought back 83.07 billion rupees of bonds against a target of 100 billion rupees on Friday.

On Wednesday, the RBI said it plans to buy back up to 200 billion rupees of bonds in one or more tranches.

Broadband auction payments of more than 380 billion rupees is expected to happen next week. Banks borrowed a net 383.9 billion rupees from the RBI via liquidity adjustment auctions on Friday.

Overnight call money rates have hovered around the central bank's benchmark lending rate of 5.25 percent for the last three weeks due to cash outflows for third generation (3G) spectrum auctions and advance tax payments.

(Reporting by Anurag Joshi; Editing by Unnikrishnan Nair)

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