UK wants to give an aid of Pounds 280 millions which translates to more than Rs 2000Cr and our Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee turns it down saying this is ‘peanuts’ when compared to India’s development expenditure. In UK too there is a pressure on Prime Minister Cameron to slash the aid to India which wants to give up voluntarily the UK aid.

Of course India’s defence budget is gigantic hence it is imperative that it cuts the same to meet the needs of development outlays. But when aid is forth coming from a developed nations like the UK it is very myopic and foolish to turn down the same on petty political consideration. Who gave the right to our FM to refuse aid to the poor India where still nearly four fifth of the populace is living under $2 income a day and deficits are ballooning by the day .  Opinion makers and Media should come down heavily on Minister Mukherjee to look at aid purely as aid and put to the best use of social sector programmes. We need to welcome every Pound that comes to our aid and not be penny wise and refuse it.

I would like the politicians in UK too to take matured view on the issue of aid. Ignore the statement of the minister and explore other ways of helping the quality of life of the poor in India, which is the function of all aids programme.

One way would be to transfer directly  the entire amount of this Pounds 280 million to the largest Biometric Mapping Programme called the Aadhaar project which aims to give over 1.2 billions Indians a unique ID number. This unique ID card is expected to plug the leakages in public distributions system and enable the Rs 3 Lakh Crore every year subsidy to reach the intended the beneficiaries and prevent, the large scale loot by the middlemen of the poor peoples entitlements. Such direct transfer of the aid to an important social sector programme will ultimately aid the poor to get their entitlements without loss. UK politicians too should be happy that their country’s  aid is not misused in corruption and bureaucracy.

Politicians from both the countries must set aside the flawed logic when it comes to solving the problems of the poor and show a degree of reasonableness and innovation in granting and using of aid money for betterment of havenots .

Foreign Minister Nirupama Rao’s proposition that India must not avail of any further British assistance because it gives negative publicity of India’s poverty is very arbitrary. The world knows where we stand on per capita income as also on various Human Development Index issues. It may be surely embarrassing for our ministers and ambassadors to lead a lavish life style when abroad with so much poverty at home and may not be able to take those questioning them in their foreign  jaunts. Indian Ministers must learn to accept reality and not sabotage aid programmes to satisfy their petty personal view instead deal with it creatively with a long term perspective in mind .