KATHMANDU, Dec 26: In the period of five and a half years, the public debt liability of the Government of Nepal has surged by Rs 1.3 trillion.

By the fiscal year (FY) 2018/19, internal and external debt was only Rs 1.04 trillion. However, the share of internal and external debt of the government has increased by more than Rs 1.3 trillion in a period of five and a half years.

During the period up to mid-December of FY 2023/24, the total public debt liability has reached 2.3 trillion.

Since the government has not been able to collect revenue as per the target, the trend of taking internal and external loans has increased rapidly in the last five years. As a result, the public debt liability in the country has soared up.

Economist Dilli Raj Khanal also says that during the last decade, the tendency of the government to take public debt has increased significantly. "In the last decade, the tendency of the government to take public loans is increasing," he said. However, even now, a situation is being created to cover the recurrent expenses by taking public loans. According to the Public Debt Management Office (PDMO), the country's public debt was Rs 1.04 trillion in FY 2018/19. That loan reached Rs 1.4 trillion in FY 2019/20.

That means, at that time, the public debt increased by more than Rs 300 billion in one year. In the year 2020/21, it reached Rs 1.7 trillion. In the year 2021/22, the public debt increased by more than Rs 250 billion in a single year.

Similarly, by the year 2022/23, the public debt had reached Rs 2.2 trillion. By the end of five months of the current FY, the share of public debt has reached Rs 2.3 trillion. Till that period, the country’s internal debt liability is Rs 1.197 trillion and external debt liability stands at Rs 1.173 trillion.

 
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