Public Debt of Indian government stands at Rs 79.8 lakh crore till June-end

The Indian government's public debt increased to Rs 79.8 lakh crore by the end of the first quarter of the fiscal ending June, from Rs 77.98 lakh crore at end of the previous quarter, official data showed on Friday.

According to a Finance Ministry release, the government's debt (including liabilities under the Public Account) accounted for 89.3 percent of total outstanding liabilities at end-June 2018 with internal debt accounting for 83.0 percent share.

"Nearly 24.9 percent of the outstanding dated securities had a residual maturity of fewer than 5 years. The holding pattern indicates a share of 42.7 percent for commercial banks and 23.5 percent for insurance companies by end-March 2018," it said.

"During the first quarter of the fiscal year 2018-19, the government issued dated securities worth Rs 1,44,000 crore in 12 tranches, lower than Rs 1,68,000 crore in the first quarter of fiscal 2017-18.

"The temporary cash flow mismatches were bridged through issuances of Cash Management Bills in three tranches up to Rs 65,000 crore during the quarter," it added.

The quarterly report on debt management also said that government securities' (G-Sec) yields have shown a hardening trend in the April-June quarter with the increase in weighted average yield of primary issuances to 7.76 percent from 7.34 percent in the previous quarter reflecting the impact of both global and domestic developments.

"The manifestation of global developments being an increase in crude oil prices, rate hike by the US Federal Reserve, rising geopolitical tensions while domestic developments included weak rupee, the rise in CPI (consumer price index), demand-supply imbalance for shorter-tenor securities and weak demand from FPIs (foreign portfolio investors)," it said.

The Finance Ministry set up a Public Debt Management Cell in 2016 to better manage the government's debt management functions.