Govt's gross debt rises 2.2% QoQ to Rs 159.53 trn in Q1: Finance Ministry

The liabilities stood at Rs 156.08 trillion at March-end

The government's total gross debt increased by 2.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter to Rs 159.53 lakh crore in April-June this fiscal, a finance ministry report said on Friday.

The liabilities stood at Rs 156.08 lakh crore at March-end.

"This represented a quarter-on-quarter increase of 2.2 per cent in Q1 2023-24. Public debt accounted for 89.5 per cent of total gross liabilities during the quarter," according to the Public Debt Management report for the April-June 2023 quarter.

Nearly 26.6 per cent of the outstanding dated securities had a residual maturity of less than 5 years, it said.

Since April-June 2010-11, the Public Debt Management Cell (PDMC), the Budget Division in the finance ministry, has been bringing out a quarterly report on debt management on a regular basis.

During the first quarter of 2023-24, the central government on the issuance/settlement basis of dated securities raised the gross amount of Rs 4.08 lakh crore, and Rs 2.71 lakh crore after adjusting for switches.

The weighted average yield (WAY) of issuances during the quarter stood at 7.13 per cent and it was 7.34 per cent for the January-March quarter of 2022-Y23.

According to the report, the weighted average maturity (WAM) of the issuances worked out to 17.58 years for the first quarter of the current fiscal and 16.58 for the preceding quarter.

In the secondary market, the report said, trading activities were concentrated in the 710-year maturity bucket during the quarter, mainly because of more trading observed in 10-year benchmark security.

Private sector banks emerged as the dominant trading segment in the secondary market during the quarter under review, with a share of 22.59 per cent in Buy deals and 25 per cent in Sell deals in the total outright trading activity, followed by foreign banks, public sector banks, primary dealers, and mutual fund.

On a net basis, foreign banks, insurance companies, private sector banks and primary dealers were net sellers, while public sector banks, cooperative banks, FIs, mutual funds and Others' were net buyers in the secondary market.