External commercial borrowings by Indian cos in April more than trebled to $1.30 billion, a sizeable portion of which was taken to start new projects. The ECBs were at $304.57 million in April last year. The borrowings in April this year included $1.27 billion via the automatic route and $39.26 million from approval route, showed data from RBI. Besides, there was additional borrowing of $394.53 million (Rs 2,545 crore) by India Inc via rupee denominated bonds (RDBs) in April 2017.There was no RDB provision vis-a-vis a year ago, it as permitted from September 2016. In the automatic route category, JSW Steel took loan of $500 million for overseas acquisition and refinancing of earlier ECB; HPCl-Mittal Energy raised $ 372 million to pay-off earlier ECB and Adani International Container Terminal Pvt ltd $60 million for port related expenses.