Aid to India: Government responds

The MPs welcomed the Government’s response which has agreed with the majority of the Committee’s proposals. In particular the Committee was pleased to note DFID’s decision to fund 56 more Indian NGOs to focus on social exclusion, discrimination and inequality in the poorest states – as recommended by the Committee. The Government has only partially agreed, however, with the Committee’s view that ‘after 2015 DFID’s aid relationship with India should change fundamentally’, but has pledged to monitor its progress in the run up to 2015.

Malcolm Bruce MP, Chair of the International Development Committee:

"We welcome the Government’s thoughtful response to our report on the UK’s aid programme in  India. We are especially pleased with proposed initiatives in social exclusion, nutrition in the first 1000 days of a child’s life and sanitation. Nearly 600 million people in India openly defecate which is a huge public health hazard.

India is rapidly emerging as one of the powerhouse economies of the twenty first century, but despite its rapid economic growth and rising prosperity, the scale of the poverty there remains immense.

UK aid plays a vital part in helping the Indian Government lift its population out of poverty and should continue until 2015. However the Government must begin to consider a new type of relationship soon."