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 percent of total outstanding liabilities at end-June 2020, the quarterly report on public debt management released on Friday said. Nearly 28.6 percent 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 percent for commercial banks and 26.2 percent 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 (WAM) 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 (PDMC).
During April-June 2020, the Central Government raised Rs 80,000 crore through the issuance of Cash Management Bills. The Reserve Bank conducted one special OMO 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 (LAF) including Marginal Standing Facility and Special Liquidity Facility was Rs 4,51,045 crore during the quarter. G-Sec yields have shown a moderating trend in the first quarter of the fiscal with the rate declining to 5.85 percent compared to the weighted average yield of 6.70 percent 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 percent by the Monetary Policy Committee on May 22, 2020 and surplus liquidity conditions in the market,” it said. Central government dated securities continued to account for a major share of total trading volumes in the secondary market with a share of 74.0 percent in total outright trading volumes in value terms during the first quarter of the current fiscal.
The gross fiscal deficit (GFD) of the Central Government for 2020-21 has been budgeted at Rs 7,96,337crore or 3.5 percent of GDP as compared to the revised estimate of Rs 7,66,846 crore (3.8 percent of GDP) and the provisional estimate of Rs 9,35,635 crore (4.6 percent of GDP) for 2019-20.
During April-June 2020, fiscal deficit at Rs 6,62,363 crore worked out to be 83.2 percent of the budget estimate as compared to 61.4 percent of the budget estimate in the corresponding quarter of 2019-20.
