New Delhi: After a US agency’s announcement cancelling $21 million for “voter turnout” in India triggered a political uproar, the Ministry of External Affairs informed Rajya Sabha that India has asked the United States to provide details of expenditure and implantation agencies of projects funded by USAID in the country over the past decade.
According to two parliamentary answers uploaded on the MEA’s website on March 18, the ministry, following “recent reports regarding USAID funding in India,” has asked the US Embassy to “urgently furnish details of expenditure incurred on all USAID-assisted/funded projects in India over the last ten years”. The two questions were submitted by four opposition lawmakers.
Although the replies were uploaded on Monday, they pertain to questions “answered” on March 13. Both houses of Parliament had cancelled their sittings that day, and as per parliamentary norms, questions scheduled for the cancelled session were carried over to the next available sitting.
The ministry also said that it has “also sought information about NGOs through whom various initiatives may have been executed”.
Stating that the US has not yet furnished the details, the MEA said that “there is some open-source information available on this matter, the Government of India understandably expects an official response from the U.S. Government on this matter”.
The ministry also said that publicly available information about beneficiaries “has been redacted in line with the exceptions outlined in the U.S. Foreign Aid Transparency and Accountability Act of 2016”.
“As per that legislation, the exceptional redactions include information that would jeopardise the health or security of an implementing partner or program beneficiary. Another justification is a determination that the information online would be detrimental to the national interests of the United States,” the MEA stated.
It is unclear whether MEA also sought information from the home ministry which extensively NGOs that must be registered with the government to receive foreign funds, as per FCRA Act. According to the MHA, USAID is not on the exempted list of organisations excluded from the “foreign source” category, meaning all its contributions must go through FCRA-registered groups, whose submissions are then audited.
In fact, The Hindu had reported last year about the hurdles posed by FCRA in providing USAID funding for projects under Gandhi-King Scholarly Exchange Initiative Act, which had been signed during Trump’s first term.
Last month, MEA had said that “relevant authorities” were investigating the reported allocation of $21 million by USAID after terming remarks by US President Donald Trump as “deep troubling”.
The MEA spokesperson addressed two separate questions – one seeking India’s comment on Trump’s assertion about funds to India seeking to topple the Modi government and the other asking whether the government would investigate the numerous agreements signed between Indian ministries and USAID since 2015.
“These are obviously very deeply troubling. This has led to concerns about foreign interference in India’s internal affairs. Relevant departments and agencies are looking into this matter,” he said at the weekly media briefing on Feb 21.
He added that it would be “premature to make a public comment at this stage”.
At that time, sources had maintained that while authorities were “looking into” the matter, it should not be seen as a probe or investigation.
On the same day in Washington, US President Donald Trump on Friday said the money was “going to my friend, Prime Minister [Narendra] Modi in India, for voter turnout.”
The move to revoke the funding came through an announcement by DOGE on its X account on February 16, in which the department declared the cancellation of financial support previously allocated to the Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS).
Incidentally, the MEA’s reply did not reference the DOGE tweet, but the announcement made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on March 10 to officially cancelling 83% of the programmes of USAID or about 5,200 contracts that spent billions of dollars
In separate investigative reports, Indian Express and Washington Post had reported that CEPPS has no projects in India, but it had allotted a similar amount for Bangladesh.
