Government debt remained almost same with a 0.4 percent growth to over Rs 40.83 lakh crore in the January-March period of 2012-13 fiscal, over the previous quarter.
“This (Rs 40,83,040 crore debt) represented a quarter-on-quarter increase of 0.4 per cent (provisional) compared with an increase of 4 per cent in the previous quarter (Q3 of FY13),” the Quarterly Report on Debt Management said today.
The internal debt constituted 91.1 percent of the public debt, compared to 90.7 percent in October-December quarter.
The RBI reduced CRR by 25 basis points to 4 percent, effective January 29, 2013 and purchased securities worth Rs 33,549 crore through Open Market Operations(OMO) auctions during the quarter. RBI also reduced repo rate to 7.50 percent during the quarter in two steps of 25 basis points each.
The net amount provided under Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF) operations remained consistently high during the quarter.
Total expenditure during April-February period at 85.2 percent of revised estimates (RE) was higher than 83.9 percent during the same period of previous fiscal.
As a result of higher expenditure, revenue deficit and fiscal deficit during April-February, at 101.2 percent and 97.4 percent of RE, were higher than 96.6 percent and 94.6 per cent respectively, in the year-ago period, it said.
