Dhaka, March 8 -- Bangladesh gets deeply indebted as, over the past 16 years, the Awami League government led by Sheikh Hasina had borrowed $74.40 billion from external sources and repaid $39.31 billion-nearly half the total-before stepping down amid a student-mass uprising.

As of June last year, Bangladesh's public sector-external debt had surged to $78.18 billion-3.67 times higher than the $21.80 billion recorded in FY 2007-08 before the Awami League took office-according to Flow of External Resources in Bangladesh, a flagship publication of the Economic Relations Division (ERD).

Experts and economists say public -sector foreign-debt stock surged abnormally in recent years for unchecked borrowing in the infrastructure sector without p...