(a) the details of external debt of India during 2014-15 and the current year;
(b)the details of State-wise external debt in the country and India’s ranking among top ten developing countries with the highest external debt;
(c) whether the Government has received any requests from the State Governments in regard to foreign loan for setting up projects in their respective States, if so, the details thereof; and
(d) the decision taken by the Government in this regard?
MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE
(SHRI JAYANT SINHA)
(a) India’s external debt stood at US$ 475.2 billion or ` 29,74,636 crore at end-March 2015. As per the latest available information, India’s external debt was US$ 483.2 billion or ` 31,76, 280 crore at end-September 2015.
(b) External debt comprises government and non-government loans. The latter includes external commercial borrowings, NRI deposits and short-term credits. As such, no state-wise distribution of external debt is available. According to World Bank’s annual publication titled ‘International Debt Statistics 2016’, India ranked third among the top ten developing countries with highest external debt in US dollar terms in 2014.
(c) & (d) External debt on government account comprises external assistance, which are loans from multilateral institutions and bilateral creditors (sovereigns); and other government debt, which comprises borrowings from the IMF, defence debt and FII investment in government securities. The largest component of external assistance is from multilateral creditors and project proposal received from the State Governments for such external funding are placed before the screening committee of the Department of Economic Affairs. In the current financial year (April 1, 2015 to February 24, 2016) about 65 projects from States were received for funding from multilateral institutions, out of them, 45 projects were approved by the Screening Committee and the rest were referred to State Governments with observations.