India cuts BD's aid allocations by 40pc
FE REPORT | Thursday, 25 July 2024
India has cut Bangladesh’s foreign aid allocations by 40 per cent in its newly announced national budget for the fiscal year (FY) 2024-25 as it has trimmed down its overall allocations, Indian newspapers reported on Wednesday.
Bangladesh will receive maximum INR 1.20 billion in the next fiscal from that of INR 2.0 billion in the outgoing FY 2023-24.
Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday presented the Union Budget for India where it has announced the allocation for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for financing the India-funded projects in the neighbourhoods, including Bangladesh.
Bhutan is the largest recipient of the Indian foreign aid allocation as it will receive INR 20.686 billion.
Bhutan is implementing 61 India-funded projects amounting to INR 49.58 billion.
Meanwhile, Indian funding was also seen a dip for Myanmar, Mauritius, Bangladesh and Mongolia and a boost for Nepal, Sri Lanka and Seychelles.
India had made commitment of providing a total $6.862 billion worth of loan for Bangladesh under its Line of Credit (LoC) in three occasions.
Under the LoC-I, India provided $862 million worth of loans, $2.0 billion under the LoC-II and $4.5 billion under the LoC-III.
The Bangladesh government is implementing several projects with the Indian LoC support.