With spurt in overseas borrowings by corporates and rupee appreciation against major currencies, India's external debt has gone up by $ 31.8 billion in the first nine months of the fiscal to $ 201.4 billion (about Rs 7,94,017 crore).
It implies that with total population of about 110 crore, per capita debt on each Indian stood at Rs 7,218.
According to a Finance Ministry statement, the external debt stood at $ 169.7 billion at end-March 2007 and increased by $ 10.3 billion in the third quarter this fiscal.
In fact, the rupee appreciation led to rise in external debt by $ 6 billion during April-December 2007. The long term debt rose by $ 6.3 billion to $ 166.2 billion, while short-term debt increased by $ 4 billion to $ 35.2 billion over the third quarter.
Amongst the components of long-term debt that accounted for 82.6 per cent of the total debt, commercial borrowings increased by $ 4.9 billion (9.4 per cent) to $ 57 billion during the nine months.
The share of government debt in total external debt stood at 26.3 per cent or $ 53 billion, while private debt was 73.7 per cent or $ 148.5 billion.
The share of US dollar in the external debt portfolio continued to show an increasing trend going up to 54.5 per cent at end-December 2007 from 52 per cent at end-March 2007.
While NRI deposits declined by 1.5 per cent at $ 43 billion, multilateral debt, bilateral debt and export credit increased marginally to reach $ 37.9 billion, $ 17.3 billion and $ 8.9 billion respectively at end-December 2007.