London, July 11: Britons, who are facing cuts in public spending, are more and more questioning the UK government’s commitment to providing aid to countries like India and China.
Chancellor George Osborne launched a website last week to get ideas from common citizens on how to “reduce the deficit by cutting public spending in a way that is fair and responsible.” The Spending Review, which will be published on October 20, will set out four-year spending plans for all government departments, as well as considering other areas of spending, including welfare.
The Spending Challenge website is hosting a large number of negative comments on the UK’s continuing aid to India.
The most popular suggestions on the website are linked to cuts in international development funding, especially to countries like India and China.
“The $38 billion (or over $3,130 for every man, woman and child in the UK) spent on overseas ‘aid’ is a luxury we can’t afford at the moment,” suggested one Briton on the website.
“Why are we giving $340 million to China where a lot of UK jobs have been exported to. The same applies to places such as India,” commented an exasperated Briton.
Last month, Britain announced that in future it will focus its aid on fewer countries and will scrutinise the countries which currently share around $32.9 billion in UK bilateral aid. “Countries such as China, which recently hosted the Olympics, and Russia, a G-8 member, will see a phasing out of UK development assistance as soon as practical and responsible,” international development secretary Andrew Mitchell had announced.
India is one of the countries under scrutiny, especially as an investigative report by a British newspaper had recently highlighted the extent of corruption in the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. “India is more complex and more difficult than China. But this is a (aid) programme I am looking at in detail,” Mr Mitchell said, without any details.