MEA budget up, allocation for developing nations reduced

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, February 1

The outlay for the Ministry of External Affairs in 2024-25 is proposed at Rs 22,154.67 crore, much higher than the 2023-24 estimates of Rs 18,050.00 crore. However, during a G-20 studded year, the MEA ended up spending an additional Rs 11,000 crore, leading to revised estimates for 2023-24 tabled today at Rs. 29,121.88 crore.

Under the head of “miscellaneous general services’’, which is not detailed in the explanatory note, the budgetary estimate in 2023-24 was just Rs 1 lakh, but the MEA spent Rs 9,013 crore on this account. This head is primarily responsible for the hike in the MEA budget. For the next fiscal, the government has proposed an allocation of Rs 4,383 crore under this head.

In aid to countries, the allocation for the Maldives and Myanmar has been reduced while that for Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka has remained more or less constant. As with previous years, there was no allocation for Pakistan. The Interim Budget has proposed a total of Rs 4,883 crore over which is about 11 per cent less than the allocation of Rs 5,408 crore made under this head in `23-24.

The allocation for the Maldives has been reduced to Rs 600 crore from Rs 770.90 crore spent this year as against the allocation of Rs 400 crore for 2023-24 and Rs 370 crore that was actually spent. For Myanmar, the proposed outlay for 2024-25 is Rs 250 crore as against Rs. 400 crore proposed last year. For `other developing countries’ too the reduction is from Rs 150 crore in 2023-24 to Rs 125 crore in `24-25. Passport and immigration expenditure overshot the `23-24 Budget estimates of Rs 997.78 crore by Rs. 795 crore. The outlay for `24-25 has been fixed at Rs 970 crore.The Chabahar port in Iran has again been allocated Rs 100 crore.

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