Govt's total liabilities rise to Rs 84.68 lakh crore at end-March 2019

Government's total liabilities reached Rs 84.68 lakh crore at the end of March 2019, up 1.5 per cent over the preceding quarter, a report released by the Finance Ministry said June 21. The total liabilities stood at Rs 83.40 lakh crore crore at end-December 2018.

"The total liabilities (including liabilities under the 'Public Account') of the Government, as per provisional data, increased to Rs 84,68,086 crore at end-March 2019 from Rs 83,40,027 crore at end-December 2018," it said.

Public debt accounted for 89.5 per cent of the total outstanding liabilities at end-March 2019.

Nearly 28.27 per cent of the outstanding dated securities had a residual maturity of less than 5 years.

"The holding pattern indicates a share of 40.5 per cent for commercial banks and 24.6 per cent for insurance companies by end-December 2018," the quarterly report on 'public debt management' said.

During the March quarter of last fiscal, the central government issued dated securities worth Rs 1,56,000 crore as against Rs 67,000 crore in the year-ago period.

The temporary cash flow mismatches were bridged through issuance of cash management bills amounting to Rs 60,000 crore during January-March quarter of 2018-19.

Market liquidity conditions, on an average basis, were mostly in a deficit mode during January-March 2019, the report said.

The net average liquidity injection by the Reserve Bank under Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) was at Rs 52,364 crore during the fourth quarter of the last fiscal (Rs 80,077.24 crore during third quarter of 2018-19).

The net average liquidity injection was to the tune of Rs 32,872 crore in January 2019, Rs 68,661 crore in February and Rs 55,559 crore in March.