Government’s public debt increases by 6% in April-June 2011

18 Aug 2011 Evaluate

In the first quarter of the current financial year, central government’s public debt increased by 6% from the fourth quarter of last financial year. However, it declined by a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) due to revision in the GDP estimates. According to the Department of Economic Affairs, under the ministry of Finance, the total public debt (excluding liabilities that are not classified under public debt) of the government increased to Rs 31,49,996 crore at end-June 2011 from Rs 29,75,628 crore at end-March 2011.

As per the Public Debt Management report, internal debt constituted 90.3% of public debt, marginally higher than 89.7% at end of Q4 of FY11. The marketable securities including rupee denominated dated securities and treasury bills accounted for 78% of the total public debt from 76.7% in Jan-March 2011. The outstanding internal debt of the government at Rs 28,42,953 crore constituted 31.7% of GDP compared with 33.9% at end-March 2011.

Because of high savings rate, internal debt has greater share in the public debt in comparison to other countries. A small share of external debt improves the credibility of government debt and increase sustainability. Likewise lesser share of short term debt contributes to sustainability of debt. The average maturity of outstanding stock of securities has declined in the April-June 2011 to 9.58 years from 9.64 years in the last quarter marginally worsening the situation

According to the report, 'overall, 30.9% of outstanding stock has a residual maturity of up to 5 years, which implies that over the next five years, on an average, 6.2% of outstanding stock needs to be rolled over every year. Thus, the rollover risk in the debt portfolio remained low.’

In the April-June 2011, the gross fiscal deficit stood at 34.9% of the budget estimates from 10.5% in the April-June 2010. This jump in the gross fiscal deficit is due to decline in receipts, mainly non-tax receipts. The revenue and non-tax revenue were at 11.5% and 9.7% of budget estimates in April-June 2011 from 29.3% and 78.2% of budget estimates respectively in April-June 2010.

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