Britain makes a profit on the 'aid' it gives to India for first time

LONDON: Britain has made a profit on the aid it gives to India for the first time since the end of the British Raj, the annual report and accounts for the Foreign, Commonwealth and & Development Office for 2024 to 2025 have shown.

Hidden away in the report’s annex, under regional programmes, where it shows how £3 billion was spent across the world, just one country stands out as having made a profit, and not as an expense, and that is India. The report shows a profit of £12,925,000 (Rs 151 crore) for the period 2024 to 2025. A total of £24,526,000 (Rs 287 crore) will now be spent on overseas aid to India 2025 to 2026, the report states.

In 2012, India’s then finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, had famously described Britain’s annual £280 million (Rs 3,277 crore) aid to India as “peanuts” and British critics repeatedly question why Britain is giving aid to India if India is funding its own space programme and has its own foreign aid budget. In 2017, the Indian govt stated it gave more foreign aid to countries than it received. A phasing out of financial aid by 2015 was duly adopted as UK govt policy in 2012.

Britain maintains that since 2015 the UK has given no financial aid to India and instead focuses on business investments which help create new markets and jobs for the UK and India and tackle shared challenges such as climate change. The UK spends millions on climate-related projects in India.

This is the first time since 1947 that the UK has made a financial return on development funding sent to the country.