Sandeep dikshit
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 16
Even when the Foreign Ministry blamed the Chinese for the outbreak of the Royal Line of Control (LAC), the government again confirmed that it had taken loans from Beijing-based multilateral banks after the Galwan Valley clash on 15th of June.
One of the loans was taken more than a month after the clashes, according to official publications on the social networks of the Union Ministry of Finance.
The Finance Ministry had declared on June 18, three days after the Galwan Valley shock, that India had opted for a $ 750 million loan from the Beijing-based Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to strengthen your response to the adverse impacts of Covid on poor and vulnerable households.
The government can claim that the loan was processed before the fighting. But it has also come to light that the Center also signed a $ 500 million agreement with AIIB on August 24 to improve the network capacity of Mumbai suburban rail system.
Despite bad blood with China, India’s borrowing program progressed in parallel. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman attended AIIB’s annual Board meeting via video conference where the Chinese president was the star speaker.
AIIB is the brainchild of Chinese President Xi Jinping and was created in 2016 as an alternative to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, dominated by the United States and Japan. Its aim is primarily to promote the One Belt and One Road (OBOR) initiative, but it now has a broad member base from 103 countries, including India, which has an 8% stake in the company. India has also borrowed from the Shanghai-based New Development Bank (NDB), promoted by the BRICS countries.
In May, India had taken a $ 500 million Covid project from AIIB and had also borrowed $ 1 billion from NDB. In terms of rupees, the two China-led banks have so far lent 17 billion rupees to India to fight the aftermath of Covid.
Opposed by the US, AIIB has approved loans to some 20 countries, including Nepal and Bangladesh in the vicinity of India.
