India-funded projects in the neighbourhood received the bulk of the allocation for the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) under the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday.
Nepal secured an allocation of ₹700 crore, which is a jump of ₹150 crore from previous year’s allocation of ₹550 crore. Sri Lanka, which has a number of India-funded projects, has received ₹245 crore, an improvement of ₹95 crore over last year’s funding of ₹150 crore. Seychelles, which had an allocation of ₹10 crore, has also received a boost in funding with the infusion of ₹30 crore.
Dip in funding
Bhutan, the largest recipient of the annual allocation under the MEA, has seen a dip in funding by ₹332.02 crore. Total funding for Bhutan this year stands at ₹2,068.56 crore.
Bhutan and India are close economic partners and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri visited Thimphu last week, when the two sides cleared 61 projects amounting to ₹4,958 crore. The slight reduction in the annual allocation therefore does not indicate a reduction in funding for projects in Bhutan.
Dips in funding were seen for Myanmar, Mauritius, Bangladesh, and Mongolia.
Conflict-torn Myanmar, which had an allocation of ₹400 crore last year, received ₹250 crore this year. Mauritius, with an allocation of ₹370 crore, has received ₹90.79 crore less than the previous year. The allocation for Mongolia, which earlier received ₹7 crore, has been scaled down to ₹5 crore.
Allocation for Bangladesh has dropped by ₹80 crore to ₹120 crore. Both Afghanistan and the Maldives, with ₹200 crore and ₹400 crore, respectively, have secured the same allocation as last year.
The Budget also allocated an additional ₹5 crore for MEA’s ‘Aid for Cultural and Heritage Projects’, bringing the total allocation to ₹15 crore.
