The total debt of the government is Tk 21 lakh crore

For the first time, the government's total debt has exceeded 21 trillion or 21 lakh crore under the pressure of long-term revenue deficit and high development expenditure. According to the newly published debt bulletin of the Finance Department, the total debt at the end of June this year stood at Tk 21.44 trillion, which is about 14 percent higher than Tk 18.89 trillion in the same period last year.

According to the Finance Department's Debt Bulletin released on Thursday, the amount of foreign debt in the total debt is Tk 9.49 trillion, which is 44.27 percent of the total debt. External debt has risen steadily over the past five years—in 2021, it stood at Tk 4.20 trillion, which was close to 37 percent of total debt.

Domestic debt has also increased significantly. It has increased from Tk 10.76 trillion in the last financial year to Tk 11.95 trillion in the current year—an increase of about 11 percent. In 2021, the amount of domestic debt was 7.22 trillion taka.

According to statistics, the growth rate of foreign debt is more than double that of domestic debt.

Finance Ministry officials said, after the corona epidemic, the budget support received from various development partners and the increase in expenditure for big projects including Rooppur nuclear power plant, Dhaka Metrorail, Matarbari coal-based power plant have caused this continuous increase in debt.