Govt debt rises by 1.7% to Rs 76.94 lakh crore in Q4

New Delhi: Government debt rose 1.7 per cent to over Rs 76.94 lakh crore in the January-March period of 2017-18 fiscal over the previous quarter.

The debt was Rs 75.66 lakh crore (Rs 75,66,215 crore) as of December 2017, according to the Quarterly Report on Debt Management released on Tuesday. At this level, the ratio of outstanding liabilities of the central government to GDP worked-out to be 45.9 per cent at end-March 2018. Public debt accounted for 88.7 per cent of the total outstanding liabilities at end-March 2018, while the share of 'Public Account' liabilities was 11.3 per cent.

"About 26.2 per cent of outstanding stock of G-Secs has a residual maturity of up to 5 years at the end of March 2018," the report said, adding that this implies that over the next five years, around 5.2 per cent of outstanding stock, on an average, needs to be repaid every year. "Thus, the roll-over risk in the Debt Portfolio continues to be low," it said.

During the fourth quarter of 2017-18, the central government issued dated securities worth Rs 67,000 crore as against issuance of dated securities of Rs 1,64,000 crore in the third quarter of 2017-18 thus leading to cumulative issuances of Rs 5,88,000 crore (98.2% of 2017-18 RE).

"In line with the Cash Management guidelines, the central government continued to time its expenditure as per pattern of receipts during the Quarter," the report noted. Since April-June (Q1) 2010-11, the Public Debt Management Cell (PDMC) of Budget Division in Ministry of Finance has been bringing-out a Quarterly Report on Debt Management on a regular

basis.