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New Delhi, May 6: : India's total debt was estimated at 19.57 trillion rupees or 41.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in the fiscal year ended March, a junior finance minister said on Tuesday.
In a written reply to parliament, Pawan Kumar Bansal said the internal debt of the federal government was estimated at 18.44 trillion rupees while external debt was at 1.13 trillion rupees at the end of 2007/08.
"While the internal and external debt of government has been increasing in absolute terms, as a percentage of GDP, it has gone down from 43.1 percent in 2003/04 to 41.7 percent in 2007/08," he said.
India's GDP, which is estimated to have grown by 8.7 percent in 2007/08, has crossed the $1 trillion mark.
Bansal said external debt rose to 2.4 percent of GDP in 2007/08 from 1.7 percent in 2003/04, while internal debt declined to 39.3 percent from 41.4 percent during the same period.
The federal government has to borrow large amount from domestic and overseas sources to fund its budget deficits as its spending continues to outpace revenue receipts.
"The government has been following a comprehensive strategy to moderate growth in public debt through a policy of fiscal rectitude, recourse to sources of lower cost of borrowings, debt restructuring measures, pursuing appropriate tax policies that result in higher tax-GDP ratio, in order to facilitate the process of fiscal consolidation," Bansal said.
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