Afghanistan, which is now being ruled by the Taliban, gets an allocation of Rs 100 crore.
New Delhi:The Ministry of External Affairs has been allocated a significant budget of Rs 20,516.61 crores, a slight decline from last year’s allocation, which stood at Rs 22,154 crore.
According to the 2025-26 budget, Bhutan emerged at the top as it gets the maximum allocation, which stood at Rs 2,150 crore, a slight increase from the previous year’s allocation of Rs 2,068.56 crore. Afghanistan, which is now being ruled by the Taliban since 2021, gets an allocation of Rs 100 crore, a notable decline of Rs 100 crore from the previous year.
In the last few months, New Delhi and Kabul have been making continuous engagements and are likely to strengthen the ties in the coming times.
For India’s eastern neighbour Bangladesh, which is now being ruled by the interim government led by Prof Yunus after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fled Dhaka and took refuge in India, sees no change in allocation, with Rs 120 crore remaining the same vis-a-vis last year.
Similarly, in other neighbouring countries such as Nepal, the budget allocation remains the same, with Rs 700 crore being the same amount vis-a-vis 2024, while Myanmar, which shares a long border with India’s Northeast, receives an uptick of Rs 100 crore from the last year as it gets an allocation of Rs 350 crore this time.
Maldives witnesses a notable uptick of Rs 200 crore in this year’s allocation as it gets Rs 600 crore this time, while it received Rs 400 crore in 2024.
Sri Lanka has been allocated Rs 300 crore, while it got Rs 245 crore in last year’s allocation.
Chabahar port in Iran sees the same allocation of Rs 100 crore as it got last year.
Autonomous bodies such as the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) receive Rs 351.25 crore, an uptick of Rs 20 crore as against last year.
Meanwhile, South Asian University also gets an allocation of Rs 170 crore as against Rs 100 crore in 2024.