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Total Government Liabilities Rise To Rs 101.3 Lakh Crore In Q1: Finance Ministry

The total debt of the government stood at Rs 88.18 lakh crore at end-June 2019.

Indian two thousand and five hundred rupee banknotes are arranged for a photograph in Mumbai, India (Photographer Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)
Indian two thousand and five hundred rupee banknotes are arranged for a photograph in Mumbai, India (Photographer Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg)

Total liabilities of the government increased to Rs 101.3 lakh crore at end-June 2020 from Rs 94.6 lakh crore at end-March 2020, according to the latest data on public debt.

The total debt of the government stood at Rs 88.18 lakh crore at end-June 2019.

Public debt accounted for 91.1% of total outstanding liabilities at end-June 2020, the quarterly report on public debt management released on Friday said.

Nearly 28.6% of the outstanding dated securities had a residual maturity of less than five years, it said, adding the ownership pattern indicates a share of 39.0% for commercial banks and 26.2% for insurance companies at end-June 2020.

During the first quarter of the current fiscal, the central government issued dated securities worth Rs 3,46,000 crore as against Rs 2,21,000 crore in the same period a year ago.

The weighted average maturity of new issuances stood at 14.61 years in the quarter as against 16.87 years in the fourth quarter of the last fiscal, according to data collated by Public Debt Management Cell.

During April-June 2020, the Central Government raised Rs 80,000 crore through the issuance of Cash Management Bills.

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The Reserve Bank conducted one special open market operations involving simultaneous purchase and sale of government securities for Rs 10,000 crore each during the quarter ended June 2020.

The net average liquidity absorption by RBI under Liquidity Adjustment Facility including Marginal Standing Facility and Special Liquidity Facility was Rs 4,51,045 crore during the quarter.

Government security yields have shown a moderating trend in the first quarter of the fiscal with the rate declining to 5.85% compared to the weighted average yield of 6.70% in the previous quarter.

"This reflected the impact of several developments namely a sharp decline in crude oil prices during April 2020, reduction in the repo rate by 40 basis points to 4% by the Monetary Policy Committee on May 22, 2020 and surplus liquidity conditions in the market," it said.

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Central government dated securities continued to account for a major share of total trading volumes in the secondary market with a share of 74% in total outright trading volumes in value terms during the first quarter of the current fiscal.

The gross fiscal deficit of the Central Government for 2020-21 has been budgeted at Rs 7,96,337crore or 3.5% of GDP as compared to the revised estimate of Rs 7,66,846 crore (3.8% of GDP) and the provisional estimate of Rs 9,35,635 crore (4.6% of GDP) for 2019-20.

During April-June 2020, fiscal deficit at Rs 6,62,363 crore worked out to be 83.2% of the budget estimate as compared to 61.4% of the budget estimate in the corresponding quarter of 2019-20.