Cameron under pressure to slash 'peanuts' aid to India

Europe Sun (ANI) Monday 6th February, 2012

British Prime Minister David Cameron is facing intense pressure to slash the 280 million pounds aid the UK gives to India after it emerged that the country said it no longer wanted the money, describing it as 'peanuts'.

According to recent British media reports, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said during an earlier Rajya Sabha session that India "does not require" UK aid.

"We do not require the aid. It is a peanut in our total development exercises (expenditure)." Mukherjee said, adding that the Indian government wanted to "voluntarily" give it up.

It also emerged that in a leaked memo dating from 2010, Foreign Minister Nirumpama Rao proposed "not to avail of any further British assistance with effect from 1st April 2011," because of the "negative publicity of Indian poverty promoted by UK's Department For International Development (DFID)."

The revelations raised fresh questions for British ministers who have been struggling to defend the Indian aid programme in the face of criticism from the public and Conservative MPs, the Daily Mail reports.

According to the paper, Tory MP Philip Davies called for the Indian aid programme to be cancelled immediately.

"India spends tens of billions on defence and hundreds of millions a year on a space programme - in those circumstances it would be unacceptable to give them aid even if they were begging us for it.

Given that they don't even want it, it would be even more extraordinary if it were to be allowed to continue," the paper quoted Davies, as saying.

"There will be millions of hard-pressed families wondering why on earth the Government is wasting money in this way," he added.

According to the paper, Tory MP Peter Bone urged ministers to abandon the 'vanity project' of pursuing a target to hand out 0.7 per cent of the UK's entire national income in aid.

"India has its own foreign aid programme so it is absurd for us to be still giving them aid. They are more than capable of looking after their own issues," he said.

"As for the 0.7 per cent target, it is a vanity project that is being pursued for no good reason at all. I do not understand the Government's position on this and I don't think the British public do either," he added.

Meanwhile, many Indian critics have also questioned the value of the aid, warning that much of it is lost to corruption and bureaucracy. (ANI)