India Inc's fund raising spree for expansion and growth plans has pushed up the figure of loans gathered by companies to a record $7.3 billion (about Rs 29,600 crore) so far this year, a latest report says.

According to data complied by global consulting firm Dealogic, the total volume of syndicated loan of corporate India has shot up by 19 per cent to a record $7.3 billion in 2007 till now as against $6.1 billion (about Rs 24,747.7 crore) during the same period in 2006.

Among the top five deals for Indian syndicate loans in 2007 so far, corporate behemoth Reliance Industries [Get Quote] has grabbed the first and second spot.

The Mukesh Ambani-controlled firm leads with loans worth $2 billion (about Rs 8100 crore) and $925 million (over Rs 3700 crore) raised for the purpose of working capital and project financing, respectively.

Syndicated loan refers to a large sum of funds provided by a group of banks collectively to a borrower. There is usually one lead bank that takes a percentage of the loan and syndicates the rest to other banks.

In January, RIL raised two billion dollar through a 10-year overseas syndicated loan for building working capital to fund its oil and gas exploration activity in the D6 block of the Krishna-Godawari basin.

The loan was arranged by a consortium of 14 banks, including Citigroup, ABN-Amro, Standard Chartered, HSBC, ICICI Bank [Get Quote] and DBS.

Reliance is closely followed by Air India, Emaar MGF Land Pvt and UK-based Vodafone, which has recently acquired majority stake in Hutchinson India, the Dealogic report shows.