India has halved its budget allocation for projects and cooperation with Bangladesh compared with the previous fiscal year amid rising bilateral tensions.
Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Nirmala Sitharaman presented the budget for the fiscal year 2026-27 in Lok Sabha on Sunday, allocating 600 million rupees in grants for Bangladesh, which is around Tk 810 million. In the original budget for financial year 2025-26, India had allocated 1.2 billion rupees in grants for Bangladesh, which is around Tk 1.61 billion. In the revised budget, the allocation was reduced to 340 million rupees, which is around Tk 450 million.
In India, the fiscal year runs from April to March.
The budget witnessed a slight increase in the allocation for grants under the Ministry of External Affairs to 56.85 billion rupees compared with 54.83 billion rupees in the financial year 2025-26.
Among South Asian countries, Bhutan again receives the highest grant, 22.88 billion rupees.
The budget has allocated 8 billion rupees for Nepal, 5.5 billion rupees for the Maldives, 4 billion rupees for Sri Lanka, 3 billion rupees for Myanmar, and 1.5 billion rupees for Afghanistan. "bdnews24
