Central Government Debt estimated at about Rs.155.8 lakh crore (57.3% of GDP) as on 31.03.2023

The Finance Minister, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman in the Ministry of Finance in a written reply to a question raised in Lok Sabha Stated, “Central Government Debt/liabilities estimated at about Rs.155.8 lakh crore (57.3% of GDP) as on 31st March 2023.”

Total amount of the Central Government Debt/liabilities is estimated at about ₹155.8 lakh crore (57.3% of GDP) as on 31st March, 2023. Out of this, External Debt valued at current exchange rate is estimated at ₹7.03 lakh crore (2.6% of GDP).

Share of External Debt is only about 4.5% of total debt/liabilities of the Central Government and less than 3% of GDP. External debt is mostly financed by multilateral and bilateral agencies at concessional rates. Therefore, the risk profile stands out as safe and prudent.

RBI in consultation with the Government has announced various measures recently to diversify and expand the sources of forex funding to mitigate exchange rate volatility and global spill overs. Some of such measures are provided below:

(i) Incremental Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank) [FCNR(B)] and Non-Resident (External) Rupee (NRE) deposit liabilities were exempted from the maintenance of Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR) for deposits mobilized up to November 4, 2022.

(ii) Fresh FCNR(B) and NRE deposits were exempted from the extant regulation on interest rates (i.e. interest rates shall not be higher than those offered by the banks on comparable domestic rupee term deposits) till October 31, 2022.

(iii) The regulatory regime relating to foreign portfolio investments in debt flows has been revised to encourage foreign investment in Indian debt instruments.

(iv) The external commercial borrowing limit (under automatic route) has been raised to US$1.5 billion and the all-in-cost ceiling has been raised by 100 basis points in select cases up to December 31, 2022.

(v) In order to promote the growth of exports from India and to support the increasing interest of the global trading community in the Indian Rupee, RBI has put in place an additional arrangement for invoicing, payment, and settlement of exports/imports in INR on July 11, 2022 etc.