Govt's total debt came down to 46.7 pc of GDP in FY13

Government's total outstanding liabilities at the end of the last fiscal was 46.7 per cent of GDP as against 50.3 per cent reported in the Budget documents, according to a status report on the public debt position of the government.
Internal debt constituted 92.9 per cent of total debt as on March 2013 while external debt accounted for the remaining 7.1 per cent, said the third status report on the public debt position of the Government released by the Finance Ministry this evening.
The public debt accounted for 86.9 per cent of total liabilities, while public account liabilities constituted the remaining 13.1 per cent at the end of FY 13, it said.

The report said that public debt has shown major improvement over the years with the liabilities coming down to 40.6 per cent in FY13, a steady decline from 48.1 per cent in FY03 to 37.1 per cent in FY08, on account of both fiscal consolidation as well as high GDP growth during the period.
However, there has been a 60 basis point (1 basis point equal to 0.01 per cent) spike in the debt position from FY12 levels to 46.7 per cent from 46.1 per cent of GDP in the previous fiscal.
The report said the trend reversed marginally during FY09 and in FY10 when fiscal deficit rose due to the fiscal easing to counter the impacts of global financial crisis. As a result, public debt to GDP ratio rose from 37.1 per cent in FY08 to 39.9 per cent in FY10.

In FY11, growth recovered and fiscal deficit dipped to 4.8 per cent, leading to a decline in public debt to 37.9 per cent of GDP.

Subsequently, fiscal deficit widened again in FY12 to 5.7 per cent of GDP which, along with a growth deceleration, led to increase in the ratio of public debt to GDP in March 2013 to 40.6 per cent.
However, the long-term trend of decline in the ratio of public debt to GDP is intact, the report noted.
On the flip side, the share of public debt in total liabilities has gone up from 80.1 per cent in FY09 to 86.9 per cent in FY13, reflecting the increased recourse to market related instruments for financing fiscal deficit.