UK confirms annual aid to India

London: The Conservative–Liberal coalition government in the United Kingdom will continue aid to India at the rate of 280 million pounds per year until 2015, an official review of UK's overseas aid has announced.

Pakistan, which the review says faces several crises and challenges, will be given 350 million pounds a year over four years, though the aid would be "linked to progress" on reforms.

On Britain's plans for aid to India, the review document says: "India's tremendous economic growth over the last decade has lifted people out of poverty and generated the resources to pay for some of the world's largest and most successful anti-poverty programmes".

One example, it says, is the primary education scheme that has got 60 million children into school since 2003.

It adds: "But the scale of need in India's poorer states - each of them larger than most African countries - remains huge. The state of Bihar alone has double the number of people living in extreme poverty than Ethiopia. Madhya Pradesh has the same population as Britain but an economy 100 times smaller and 50 times more mothers die there every year".

In line with its announced policy to target the aid correctly, the Department for International Development is discussing a new approach with the Government of India, an approach that will focus on India's poorest states and poorest people.