UK to continue India aid despite protests

Despite a welter of protest over giving aid to an increasingly prosperous India, the cash-strapped David Cameron government has decided to continue the present level of aid 280 million pounds per year until 2015. Saddled with mounting budget deficit, British aid to several countries is being cut or substantially reduced as part of its overall efforts to cut public spending. However, the government has decided against any cuts to the aid to India, which will amount to over 1 billion pounds until 2015.

A thorough review of the governments overseas aid programme is to be announced on Tuesday, but sources in the department of international development told PTI that the aid to India will continue at the present level of 280 million pounds per year. The department will target aid to India in the three poorest states of Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. According to extracts from the official review to be published on Tuesday, Britain will invest much more aid in the private sector (the proportion of aid which supports pro-poor private investment) to ensure that the private sector delivers jobs, products and basic services to the very poorest states.

"We will freeze the level of our current programme (280 million pounds a year) but we will change the nature of what we do. We will not be in India forever but the time has not yet come to end aid completely. India has more people living in extreme poverty than anywhere on the planet," the review says.

According to the document, over 300 million of the world's poorest people live in India. "The scale of need in India's poorer states -- each of them larger than most African countries -- remains huge. More than half of girls in Madhya Pradesh don't yet go to secondary school; more than half of the young children in Bihar are undernourished," the review added.

Several MPs have voiced public criticism to give aid to an India whose economy is growing exponentially, and is now in a position to give aid to many African countries. The criticism comes amidst deep public spending cuts that have led to many job losses in Britain. The review document says that Britain will also stop giving aid to a number of countries as part of a major shake-up of UK development work that will see efforts refocused towards the poorest parts of the world.