A month ago, when the NDA government began its third term, India spelt out clearly that it would focus on its neighbourhood. The presence of leaders from the neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean region, including Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe, at the inauguration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s third term, reaffirmed that policy.
In keeping with that, a major chunk of the Ministry of External Affairs’ outlay, Rs 4,883 crore, has been earmarked for “aid to countries”, of which countries from the neighbourhood – Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan and Myanmar – get the lion’s share.
Bhutan has emerged as the top recipient of Indian government aid to foreign countries, according to the Union Budget documents released after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Union Budget 2024-25 Tuesday. It gets the highest aid at an estimated Rs 2,068.56 crore, which is slightly less than Rs 2,400 crore last year.
The provision is for India’s multilateral and bilateral aid and assistance programmes to neighbouring and other developing countries. This assistance is provided to immediate neighbouring countries and also to the countries of Africa, Central Asia, South Asia and Latin America.
Maldives will get Rs 400 crore in the new Budget, the same as last year, even as the revised Budget for 2023-2024 showed a higher amount of Rs 770.90 crore. Despite the anti-India protests as well as remarks from its top leadership late last year, which caused a diplomatic row, India’s investment in the archipelago nation continues to remain consistent.
Nepal stands out as a significant beneficiary with an allocation of Rs 700 crore, marking a substantial increase of Rs 150 crore from the previous year’s budget of Rs 550 crore, later revised to Rs 650 crore. Besides Nepal, there have been increased allocations for Sri Lanka and Seychelles as well, at Rs 245 crore (up by Rs 95 crore from last year’s allocation of Rs 150 crore) and Rs 40 crore (up from Rs 10 crore), respectively.
The increase is dependent on the needs and requirements of each country. These allocations are intended for infrastructure support and development projects. Afghanistan and the Maldives have not seen any changes in their allocations, remaining at Rs 200 crore and Rs 400 crore, respectively.
The Chabahar port project in Iran continues to receive a steady allocation of Rs 100 crore, unchanged for the past three years.
The total Budget estimate for the MEA for 2024-25 is Rs 22,155 crore, which exceeds the Rs 18,050 crore allocated in 2023-24. However, it falls short of the revised estimate of Rs 29,121 crore for the same fiscal.
