IMF has projected India's public debt-to-GDP ratio to touch a new high of almost 90%, up 17 percentage points, on account of an increase in public spending and sharp contraction in the economy due to Covid-19.

The public debt ratio has been stable at around 70% of GDP over the past decade and was at 72.1% at the end of the last financial year. The aggregate liabilities of the Centre and the state governments stood at around Rs 147 trillion at the end of March 2020, according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data.

"Going forward it is projected to stabilise in 2021, before slowly declining up to the end of the projection period, in 2025. Broadly speaking the pattern of public debt in India is close to the norm around the world,"Vitor Gaspar, director of the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department, told PTI.

Real GDP growth averaged 6.5% between 1991 to 2019, and real GDP per capita was multiplied by four over that period. This impressive growth performance helped lift millions of people out of extreme poverty, he added.

The extreme poverty rate, measured as the proportion of people whose income is less than $1.90 a day at purchasing power parity (the international poverty line), fell from 45% in 1993 to 13% by 2015 (date of the latest full extrapolation by the World Bank available - last full evaluation, based on household surveys, goes back to 2011), Gaspar said.

India achieved the millennium development goal of halving poverty by 2015 (from its 1990 level), he said.

"India has made astonishing progress in other areas. Education enrollment is nearly universal for primary school. Infant mortality rates have been halved since 2000. Access to water and sanitation, electricity, and roads has been greatly improved,"the IMF official told PTI.

According to Gasper, in the near-term, additional fiscal action can and should be deployed as needed to support the poor and the vulnerable.

"This should be accompanied by a credible medium-term fiscal consolidation plan that can reinforce market confidence and structural reforms that boost India's growth potential,"he added.

"Going forward, public finances should continue to support growth and development in India. The effects of COVID-19 on health, education, poverty and nutrition render progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals even more urgent. Macroeconomic and financial stability are important necessary conditions for sustainable development,"he said.