This paper examines the effect of public debt on economic growth in India between 1980 and 2011. Using the autoregressive distributed lag ARDL model, the paper traces a long-run equilibrium relationship between public debt and economic growth. The error correction model (ECM) results show that central government debt, total factor productivity (TFP) growth, and debt-services are affecting the economic growth in the short-run, and that the results are consistent with our a priori expectation. It is recommended that the government should follow the objective of inter-generational equity in fiscal management over the long term in order to stabilize debt-GDP ratio, particularly, after the global financial crisis. © 2014 Economic Society of Australia, Queensland.