?According to OECD group of the aid donor nations, the words “aid” and “assistance” refer to flows which qualify as Official Development Assistance (ODA) or Official Aid (OA). Such OA or ODA aid includes both grants and soft loans given by OECD nations and multi-lateral institutions like the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, IMF, etc.
Britain will spend over $1.5 billion during the next three years in aid to Shining India, a nuclear-armed power that sent a spacecraft to the moon recently, to lift “hundreds of millions of people” out of poverty, the British secretary of state for international development said last November, according to the Guardian newspaper.
Douglas Alexander, the first cabinet minister to visit India’s poorest state Bihar, said that despite “real strides in economic growth” there were still 828 million people living on less than $2 a day in India.
UK’s Department of International Development says if the UN’s millennium development goals – alleviating extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates and fighting epidemics such as Aids – are left unmet in India, they will not be met worldwide. Some 43% of children go hungry and a woman dies in childbirth every five minutes.
British Minister Alexander contrasted the rapid growth in China with India’s economic success – highlighting government figures that showed the number of poor people had dropped in the one-party communist state by 70% since 1990 but had risen in the world’s biggest democracy by 5%
The biggest direct aid donor countries to India are Japan and UK, as well as multiple international humanitarian aid programs supported through NGOs, in addition to the World Bank, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDP, WFP, and a whole alphabet soup of organizations active in helping the teeming population of the poor, the illiterates, the hungry and and the destitute in India.
According to Japan’s ministry of finance, India has received $33 billion in soft loans and a billion dollars in grants from Japan since 1997. In 2008, Japan gave India $2.5 billion in soft loans, and $5 million in grants. By contrast, Pakistan has received $10 billion in soft loans, and $2.3 billion in grants from Japan since 1999. In 2008, Japan gave Pakistan $500 million in soft loans and $63 million in grants.
India, often described as peaceful, stable and prosperous in the Western media, remains home to the largest number of poor and hungry people in the world. About one-third of the world’s poor people live in India. More than 450 million Indians exist on less than $1.25 a day, according to the World Bank. It also has a higher proportion of its population living on less than $2 per day than even sub-Saharan Africa. India has about 42% of the population living below the new international poverty line of $1.25 per day. The number of Indian poor also constitute 33% of the global poor, which is pegged at 1.4 billion people, according to a Times of India news report. More than 6 million of those desperately poor Indians live in Mumbai alone, representing about half the residents of the nation’s financial capital. They live in super-sized slums and improvised housing juxtaposed with the shining new skyscrapers that symbolize India’s resurgence. According to the World Bank and the UN Development Program (UNDP), 22% of Pakistan’s population is classified as poor.
The British government is planning to make a “fundamental change” in its development aid policy and scale down the £250-million annual aid to India.
India amounted for £300 million of the £6 billion Department for International Development (DFID) aid fund annually. However, Mitchell observed that India didn’t really need British development aid as the rich NRI population of Britain could do more to help their countrymen. DFID is the biggest source of development aid in India after Japan.
Almost 66 per cent of the grant given to India by DFID goes to the government: to fund the health ministry’s Reproductive Child Health and HIV and AIDS programmes (42 per cent) and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (24 per cent). The remaining amount is shared by the Rural Livelihood Programmes in four states and the Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) programme.
Indian activists say access to DFID funds is contingent on hiring consultants, mostly British. “When they (DFID) give money they send their own consultants. The way they handle it, it would be better if they didn’t give anything,” said Harsh Jaitley who heads VANI, a network of 2000 NGOs.
Echoing Jaitley’s views Anil Chaudhury, activist and founder of NGO Peace and Action Centre (PEACE), said agreements signed by DFID (and other agencies) have inbuilt clauses that ensure that a chunk of the money was paid to consultancies — a large proportion of these bodies are run by expatriates to ensure that the money flows back into the British economy.
As much as 60 per cent of the grant could often go towards paying the consultants hired by DFID to audit and monitor the programmes. Leakages take care of the rest, said an activist who didn’t want to be named.
Amitabh Behar, co-convenor of the National Social Watch Coalition said none of the ongoing programmes in India that are funded by DFID would be affected if British development aid were to be cut because the Indian government is capable of filling up the gap.
Behar is on the advisory board of the International NGO Partnerships Agreement Programme comprising seven British NGOs. This oversees the second phase of PACS.
He said a cut back on DFID aid could be the best thing to happen to the development sector. What DFID should fund is not the Indian government but institutions that ensure governance, monitoring and auditing of development funds.
But many activists objected precisely to this: large monitoring mechanisms. These interventions, they say, are nothing but the means to get a handle on policy making and to buy clout in the government.
The DFID clarification states that in 2009-10, 44 per cent of its 285 million pound aid budget in India went to national government programmes on health and education, 41 per cent to the states of Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh and 15 per cent to multilaterals and civil society organisations.
Also, the Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) programme is not managed by the International Partnership Agreement Programme. These two are separate civil society programmes, both focused on improving the lives of poor people, the DFID clarification has stated. The errors are regretted.
The British aid body has also stated that it is not the case that its agreements have “inbuilt clauses” for hiring British consultants. UK development assistance has been untied for well over a decade and management consultants for DFID programmes are selected through open tenders using standardised selection criteria. In 2008-09, DFID let over 200 contracts for services, 85 per cent of which were awarded to bidders registered in India.
The activists cited the example of creating civil societies in poor areas or the PACS programme, run through NGOs. DFID claims to have set up a network of 35,000 community-based organisations funded through 650 NGOs to reach 19,500 villages.
Pradeep Ghosh, who runs museum schools in Bhopal, said unless these organisations are enabled and made self-sustainable, they would exist as long as there was funding and sink as soon as it dried up. This is not a healthy practice, he said.
Jaitley said: “When PACS 2 was launched, the finance secretary was present and he said ‘India doesn’t not need the peanuts offered by DFID. It should instead offer expertise’. So our government is not afraid of the kind of statements the British are making now.”
Grass-roots organisations are least conerned about a possible withdrawal of British aid. Abhay Singh of Dudhi Vikas Samiti in Sonbhadra said NGOs like his had never received anything from big donors who fund the government directly. The government selects a handful of big NGOs who then provide smaller ones some money on and off to do their work.
DFID India office told Business Standard that it has not taken any decision yet on a phase out or withdrawal of funds to India.
India’s largest aid donor is Japan:
Loan: 236.04 billion yen (FY 2008)
Grants: 4.28 billion yen (FY 2008)
Technical Cooperation: 11.79 billion yen (FY 2008)
In spite of all of the recent news about aid to Pakistan dominating the media, the fact remains that resurgent India has received more foreign aid than any other developing nation since the end of World War II–estimated at almost $100 billion since the beginning of its First Five-Year Plan in 1951. And it continues to receive more foreign aid in spite of impressive economic growth for almost a decade. At the recent G20 meeting, India has asked the World Bank to raise the amount of money India can borrow from the bank for its infrastructure projects, according to Times of India. At present, India can borrow up to $15.5 billion as per the SBL (single borrower limit)in soft loans fixed by the Bank.
After the increase of British aid to $500 million (300 million pounds) a year, India will still remain the biggest recipient of Japan’s official development assistance (ODA) in the near future. Since Japan’s first ODA to India in 1958, the country has received monetary aid worth Rs 89,500 crore (Rs 895 billion) so far, according to Noro Motoyoshi, Japanese consul general in Kolkata. In 2008, Japan’s ODA to India was up by more than 18% compared to 2007 at Rs 6916 crore (Rs 69.16 billion).
Now, there is a BBC report about how India is using some of the British aid amounting to $500 million. It says “Last year Britain gave almost £300m (US$500m) to India in development aid. But India plans to spend more than US$1bn on its space programme next year”. Here’s the report:
International development aid is one part of the UK budget unlikely to be cut in a squeeze on public finances. But questions are being asked about how aid is used, and which countries need it. India last year got almost £300m from the UK, some of it spent on toilets in the country’s financial capital, Mumbai.
The stench from the stagnant, fetid stream of the Queresh Nagar slum in Mumbai hits you as soon as you get out of the car.
The slum itself is bustling and vibrant. There is a line of shops with living quarters above. The stream is behind, the water a murky grey with insects buzzing on top. Some residents have rigged up ****** plastic covers at the back of their homes for privacy. But the children scamper around using the stream, or whatever ground they can find on the disused rail track behind, for a toilet.
“We have to live in these conditions,” says La La Nawab Ali, who is showing me around.
“What can we do? You can see the state of it. This is Mumbai.”
In another slum at Munjul Nagar, residents show letters, many signed with thumb prints, asking the authorities to finish building a toilet block that has been left half-finished. A similar stench pervades the air.
“It’s an extremely difficult and helpless situation,” explains Prasad Shetty, an urban planning consultant. “It’s an extremely embarrassing undignified demeaning kind of experience for them.”
Most of the funding for the sanitation project initially came from the World Bank and was then was taken over by the Mumbai government.
A small amount of British aid goes from the UK Department of International Development (DFID) through charities in England and India, mainly to train people to maintain their community toilet blocks. But many in the slums say they know little or nothing about it.
“You foreign people from over there, you keep on sending so much money,” says one angry slum resident. “But the poor person sees nothing.”
No water
Central to the scheme is building blocks of public toilets that can be used by the millions of people presently living with no sanitation.
Most of the blocks built so far work, but evaluators say there have been problems with about a third of them. Some have been built with no water supply. Some are not being maintained. One in the Queresh Nagar slum had to be pulled down because it was unsafe. The one in the Munjul Nagar slum has been left half-built because of objections from a developer.
“And somebody even sells the toilets,” explained Jockin Arputham, founder of the National Federation of Slum Dwellers. “Sometimes they might have been sold to somebody for a premium.”
BBC News – Should the UK fund toilets in Mumbai slums?
Haq’s Musings: Foreign Aid Continues to Pour in Resurgent India
![Wall Street - Money Never Dies [Zardari Version]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4148/5045452425_aa4d58c7a5_m.jpg){kind=small}
Is it THAT difficult to build toilets & improve the quality of life in India ? NOT AT ALL.
Tell Bismillah Broadcasting Corporation that is BBC , atrocious amounts of money gets needlessly spent on kirikettu , which is cricket . Deport all cricketers & cricket lovers of India to Pakistan , Saudi arabia Iran Afghanistan. Lots of space to play kirikettu . Lots of money and money and money.
And please please do yank away obnoxious Mani Ratnams & Suhasinis of Kollywood who want to spend the rest of their lives playing golf to your Afghanistan . Please , please , please. They will make lots of hindu muslim bhai bhai movies , shumba nishumban movies after their ‘Ravan’ bluster to entertain you .
That is a windfall bonus .
i am sorry i do not agree that china receives aid. A country that gave trillion dollars to US as loan. such a lie.
Are you an [...]? The graph clearly shows India at like 4th place with China receiving more aid! And Iraq naturally receiving the most.
Wow, really, you do not know how to even “cut & paste” facts into your document also [...]
Editor’s Note: Abusive comments or personal insults will ensure that your comments are daleted without being published
@ ABh
Please read the entire article.
Bharat is one of the largest recipients of foreign aid. The biggest donors to Bharat are Japan and the UK. The US also gives millions along with various other European countries.
Bharat is also one of the biggest debtor nations on the planet
DEAR EDITOR [...]
u [...] are so illterate that even after cut and paste from some website you have mentioned INdia as the largest recipient…that way you have mentioned is that Pakistan is one of the richest countries in the world, u begging bowl for the world!!!
Raj writing as Sam
Literacy can be ascertained by the level of discourse, the formatting, the vocabulary, the syntax and the language used. We have written and published 5000 articles on this site.
Your one liners are surely depict the level of education of the “Superpower”. It is a fact that Bharat is the largest recipient of UK aid. It is one of the largest recipients of international aid. Bharat’s largest donor is Japan.
Bharat also is one of the biggest debtor countries in the world with debt estimated at ranging from $250 billion to $3 Trillion (Public and Private debt).
Yes we did “cut and paste” the information with full credit given to the international organization that monitors debt and aid to Bharat.
Obviously you have no clue about research and can’t write an article.
Now you can continue your name calling.
I totally agree with The Editors saying India receives lot of aid .
I am very angry. Who asked you to give even one paisa knowing very well CHEATS & THIEVES called Indians rule over aam & angoor janata here.
Dividing us linguistically , religion & in all possible ways.
Politicians & vested interests within India including overwhelming number of hindus might get agitated perceiving sinister motives behind CBI interrogation of Amit Shah.
As an aam & angoor janata I strongly feel Narendra Modi (& his coterie) has to answer honestly. Many disturbing facts are surfacing. Hindus are not angels.
It has become a sickening habit with hindus to cry wolf forever uttering Dawood Ibrahim’s name. I am sure Dawood Ibrahim did not scream soon after taking birth ” I am going to become a terrorist “.
In an interview Dawood Ibrahim expressed his unalloyed admiration & respect for only one solitary incorruptible Indian Police or Customs Officer.
Virtue Is Its Own Reward.
Today RSS thunders no one should use the word hindu terrorism. Who the hell is this RSS to pontificate to us ? I never said I like or support RSS.
Thank God , God saved me once. One RSS fellow requested me several times to do ” seva ” by dangling a very famous Bharathanatyam dancer’s name. That she personally would meet me .
I refused. Thank God.
Most Indian women ( and men too ) are abhorrently arrogant & supercilious.
They delude themselves they are apsaras , descendants of Vedic Rishis.
Pothys gave FREE silk sarees ATROCIOUSLY expensive studded with precious stones to arrrrggh hemamalini & certain other equally arrogant dancers , singers blahblah. Who are ALREADY abominably affluent. As part of their ad campaign.
The snooty arrrgh hemamalini a BJP MP braaaahhhhhminnn ( the brand ambassador of kapalabathi besotted Baba Ramdev who menacingly intimidates all of us about eradicating corruption & bringing what LOL…Ram Rajya…LOL..) loathesomely spouted:-
” we indian women alone are the mostestest beautifullestest …this saree our ancient culture hoohaaa enhances our beauty hooohaaa ”
Elsewhere said:-
” though I was dating Dharamjeeeee ( ROTFL) actually…..Feroz Khan ALONE had everything a woman could ask for…….”.
Agreed. It is a free country all one’s swatantra free will independent choices yadayada…
Sparing you lot more about the other side of these holy indian pavitrapapis including non actresses.
BUT these heartless sluts are thrust upon the gullible masses & impressionable youth as role models & rulers of vandemataramindia.
Give me any day a Maneka gandhi or Sonia Gandhi. Only because they are not posturing.
A country like America actually goes overboard in upholding Morality , Ethics , probing threadbare into the credentials of their Leaders & Policy Makers. And much more. Tailored to their culture. And I wholeheartedly like that.
Indian arrogant cheats , congenital racists & jealous envious covetous imbeciles ought not to have this pukesome temerity in comparing themselves with Americans , Chinese , Europeans ,
also Pakistanis I would venture to say.
As lot of Indians muzzle free speech. Very autocratic , sending intimidating threats . When these autocratic pseudo patriotic indians face their Nemesis I am NOT even going to ” koondemn the dastardly”…..
that is the problem
because stupid indians do not accept their fault
in the capital of india only 5-6 kilometers of Rajdhani there are thousands of people sleeping in streets,
indians should see paharganj, old delhi … etc and decide their future, all indian booming economy is in the hand of few richest family and the remain lives in extremely poverty …
rocket and missile will not work, first change your people life, because if indians think that by above 30 billion expence on military india can even cross 1 meter into pakistan, they think wrong.
because hindus do not have that morality to fight, and the times has proven, since our country emperors till to british empire…
we afghans will come back soon, but this time no india will remain.
love life afghan-pak brotherhood
To my knowledge only Mani Shankar Aiyar used the phrase ” inclusive governance “.
Whereas arrogant supercilious hindus ( advani , murli manohar joshi the whole lot ) talk expansively about ” looking after muslims & christians of India “.
As an individual the very idea of someone stroking my back with this lisping of endearing nothings ” I will look after you , take care of you , you can trust me ” is revolting.
Hence how can hindus be so audacious to say we will look after muslims & christians ?
For too long I have heard , read , even commented angrily like the rest about ” temple money diverted to Haj pilgrimages etc “. As a patriotic religious hindu you have to make these noises. To survive in India.
The moment I ask my OWN questions / doubts I have always been muzzled branded as a ” you must be a converted muslim , converted christian , leftist , atheist …”.
Thank God I don’t know Mathematics , Accountancy , Profit & Loss.
But I can see & think for myself at least. Though not a rapid thinker / trouble shooter. I see lots of muslims within India actually living in incredibly miserable conditions. Forget the filmstars . If money is diverted to muslims as alleged by hindus why are they living in squalor ?
Why can’t both muslims & hindus receive the same quality education ? Intermingling without some hindu vested interest breathing down our necks & monitoring ? Why not we STOP arguing my God is better than your God ?
Correct me if I am wrong. I feel hindus still harbour casteist animosity towards the Indian muslims. So what if they have embraced Islam . Hence such ostrasizing takes place.
I don’t want to narrate certain instances that profoundly made me feel this way. As I am scared of hindus who are extremely militant.
And then ofcourse castes within castes they just go on like concentric circles.
My anger in this entire charade is directed towards hindus because as a hindu , I expect each one to internalise what our Vedic Scriptures say. Hasthamalakar ALONE would suffice to clear all cobwebs of this swollen headed hindus.
Within Indian prisons also the same hatred of hindus towards muslims get unleashed in bloodcurdling ways. By the hindu warden , hindu police etc.
I did not know this at all. Only a week ago I happened to read. Enough to make one go numb with SHOCK. How many innocent muslims get herded in prisons & what happens inside. All within INDIA. I simply cannot narrate as it would resurrect pain in me.
America actually does NOT torture or behave inhumane as hyperbolically alleged ( Guantanomo Bay)
Worse still , I am prevented from reading & knowing. Till I visited this site had no idea at all about Modi the TYRANT. It took me a very long time to connect the dots. What with my own terrorist hindu relatives & terrorist (sic) husband incarcerating & poisoning me frequently.
Forget it , none of these politicians really care for you . Muslims get used & exploited. As Indians in general are cruel bereft of kindness . Period.
So America Israel China along with Pakistan & a few normal Indians like say Chidambaram & Manmohan Singh should decide about overhauling & governance in India. Certainly not RSS or hindu militants.
More than Indian Muslims and Pakistanis I AM dead scared of hindus.
During my stay in Coimbatore I wanted to go to Thiruvannamalai ( Ramana Bhagavan ).
I told my child very explicitly NOT TO EAT or DRINK anything from the neighbouring hindus ‘ families even if pressed. By God’s Grace I came to know about one Muslim Professor & his family living nearby . I asked my child X to eat in that Muslim’s family till I came back.
Now you know how much I am scared of hindus. Don’t think I am being paranoid. Not at all.
There are a lot of reasons I cannot narrate.
Appeal to help Pakistan flood victims
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-10840273
Result:
?Britain pledged five million pounds Monday to help the victims of flooding in Pakistan which has killed over 1,500 people and affected up to 2.5 million.
The cash, which will be channelled through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), will be spent on efforts to help provide safe drinking water, toilets, sewage clearance and other measures
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iAOSLwRL0lPblGDGs-sOLwpxtTRg
Few days earlier:
# Cameron is like a cuttlefish squirting out ink: David Miliband
http://sify.com/news/pakistan-bags-30-million-euros-in-eu-humanitarian-aid-news-international-kibnEhdhfjf.html
@Samin Afghan
>>we afghans will come back soon, but this time no india will remain. love life afghan-pak brotherhood
There is a big misconception among Pakistani and Afghan people. Mahmud of Ghazni, Ghurids, Delhi Sultanate, Mughals were all central AsiansTurks. The contribution made by the turks dwarfs the contribution of pushtuns in spreading islam across Pakistan subcontinent. I can only think of couple of pushtuns rulers Abdali, Alauddin, suri.
This has to be made clear because there are some Afghan pushtun bigots spreading misinformation about Pakistan history that they ruled Pakistan is preposterous. Thats right Afghanistan was never an independent empire it was always a part of persian empire, If it wasn’t for the turks you would still be part of persians
@ Y?m?n al-Dawlah Tashfin Ibn Ghaznavid
hey my friend
from your comments it looks that you are so racist,
first of all be a muslim, because all muslims are brothers … if turk, paki, afghan … etc
now i suggest you please kindly read some history
from where the hell turks came in in this story???
our emperor Mehmud Ghaznavi turki or from central asia, but he was from Ghazni province of afghanistan, Sultan Ghori was from gor province of afghanistan, Ahmad shah Abdali was from kandahar of afghanistan and Babar Shah was from afghanistan, Sultan Sekandar Lodi was also from Ghor province of afghanistan and all of their graves are still in afghanistan or in india, only in mughal empire there were some central asians or some turks but not important onces.
persian empires were all out when our empires were on kingdom.
there was no pakistan when we ruled them …
afghans ruled india that time, and afghani patan people from accross afghanistan moved inside india for promoting islam,
when pakistan created there was no afghani empire, so what are you talking about …
please my friend, how some knowledge then post comments.
turks ?? hahahah
I agree with owner of this post.
India receives a lot of aid but again aid are not seen or utilize.
They are just shown not actually given to manage there accounts by finance consultants.