India slashes aid for Bangladesh

India has slashed significantly its aid in the form of grants and loans for Bangladesh in the new fiscal (2014-2015) year which is almost 40 per cent lower than the previous fiscal year. Bangladesh is the only country in the SAARC region for which the budget has made lower provisions. The aid for Bangladesh in the current year budget has been Rs 3.5 billion against Rs 5.8 billion last year. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s engagement with Bhutan has helped the Kingdom nation with the grants and loans allocated to the latter going up by nearly 50 per cent – from Rs 41 billion last year to Rs 60 billion this year. Bhutan has always been getting significant financial aid from India by way of grants, both under plan and non-plan expenditure heads. Comparatively, other countries of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have got marginal hikes in grants from the Indian government this year. Even Afghanistan, where India’s engagement has increased in recent years, has been allocated Rs 6.76b, not a big hike against last year’s Rs 5.25b. Among grants and loans to foreign countries, Nepal has got Rs 4.5b as against Rs 3.8b in the previous year. In case of Sri Lanka, the allocation has been Rs 5b, an increase of Rs 900 million from last year, according to The Times of India.