Public debt rises 3% in 3 months to Rs 55.26 trillion at Dec-end

India’s public debt rose to Rs 55.26 lakh crore at the end of December, representing a quarter-on-quarter increase of 3 per cent. The debt (excluding liabilities under the ‘Public Account) of the government was Rs 53.66 lakh crore at the end of September.

Internal debt constituted 92.2 per cent of public debt compared with 92 per cent in the previous quarter, said Quarterly Report on Debt Management released by the Finance Ministry on Tuesday.

Marketable securities (consisting of rupee denominated dated securities and treasury bills) accounted for 85.7 per cent of total public debt as compared with 85.3 per cent as on end-September 2015.

“The outstanding internal debt of the government at Rs 5,097,016 crore constituted 37.2 per cent of GDP at end-December 2015 compared with 37.1 per cent at end-September 2015,” the report said. The weighted average maturity of outstanding stock of dated securities as at December decreased marginally to 10.53 years from 10.54 years at end-September 2015. Over the same period, the weighted average coupon of outstanding stock also decreased marginally to 8.08 per cent from 8.09 per cent. As per the report, the proportion of debt (dated securities) maturing in less than one year decreased to 3.6 per cent at end-December 2015 from 3.9 per cent a quarter ago.

Proportion of debt maturing within 1-5 years stood lower at 15.9 per cent as against 23.3 per cent at end-September 2015.

The government issued dated securities worth Rs 1.5 lakh crore in 10 tranches taking the gross Borrowings from April- December of FY16 to Rs 5.01 lakh crore or 83.5 per cent of budget estimate for the fiscal.

“The gross market borrowings is planned to be lowered by Rs 15,000 crore expecting similar amount to be raised through Sovereign Gold Bond Scheme and Gold Monetisation Scheme,” the report said.

To elongate maturity and taking into account the strong demand expressed by long term investors for longer government bonds, security with maturity of 40 years was first issued in October 2016.