India might still be known as a country that receives a huge amount of foreign aid, since millions of its citizens continue to live in poverty. But over the last decade, India has also turned into one that doles out about as much support as it receives. Most of that goes into the country's immediate neighbourhood.

Bhutan, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka are the largest recipients of Indian aid, either in terms of grants or loans, according to the Ministry of External Affairs' budget.

"In keeping with India's goal for close and good neighbourly relations, a deepened focus in our developmental assistance is towards the countries in the neighbourhood with projects directed towards establishing infrastructure for interconnectivity, trade and investments, so that benefits of development are shared mutually," says the MEA's outcome budget document this year.

 


Aid to Bhutan, where India is involved in constructing hydroelectric projects, is by far the biggest item on the budget. Assistance to Thimphu has continued to grow over the last decade, reaching an estimated Rs 6160 crore this year. Afghanistan is next on the list, and India's assistance to the country has also been increasing.


Especially after the United States toppled of the Taliban regime a decade ago, India has been one of the most visible donors to the country, even building its Parliament. But the arrival of a new president in the country who has preferred to have closer relations with Pakistan and China, over the US and India, seems to have coincided with a small drop in the amount of aid India is doling out to Kabul this year.

New Delhi, meanwhile, has had a see-saw relationship with Maldives over the last few years. India has struggled to deal with a series of political crises that have engulfed the island-nation. This seems to have reflected in the amount of aid being doled out, although that is often dependent on bureaucratic processes and the progress of projects. As the graph suggests, the amount has swung in a major way every other year.

Despite claims of increasing aid and loans beyond the immediate neighbourhood, however, the actual amount budgeted for African nations hasn't gone up tremendously over the last decade, hovering at about the Rs 150-crore to Rs 200-crore mark. Less than Rs 20 crore each has gone to Eurasian and Latin-American nations.