Aid To India ‘Triumph Of Collective Responsibility’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31081, 9 June 1966, Page 22

Aid To India ‘Triumph Of Collective Responsibility’

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter) NEW DELHI. Twenty-four nations have offered aid worth about £206 million to save India from famine, in one of the biggest international rescue programmes yet known.

The aid represents nearly 8s 3d for every

man, woman and child in the country. It is equivalent to nearly 12 per cent of the central Government’s budget for this year.

The total may grow still further with contributions from 13 other countries which have promised to consider India’s appeal for emergency assistance, launched when the depths of the food crisis became apparent last December.

In the meantime,' ships are already unloading at India’s harbours with commodities to feed the people and fertilisers to boost future production. Grants and loans are being channelled into agriculture development. The Government is now confident that it can beat the famine threat.

India’s foreign aid requirements do not end with food and agricultural assistance. Loans for economic development and imports of muchneeded raw materials will hav: to be added if Indian industry is to keep on its feet.

A prominent British industrialist, Sir Norman Kipping, who visited India recently, has said in a report to the Confederation of British Industries that no amount of ingenuity can prevent largescale unemployment from developing in the next few months as stocks of raw materials give out. Some firms have already halved their production to eke out their stocks as long as possible.

India’s chronic shortage of foreign exchange, which limits her imports to all but the barest essentials, can be largely traced to the unprecedented drought. Cotton and jute suffered alongside rice and wheat crops and this has hit India’s textile industry, one of her major sources of export earnings. The dry-ing-up ■ of rivers has cut hydro-electric power resources, which in turn has affected production. Valuable foreign exchange, reduced to a low level by the suspension of United States and British economic aid during the Indo-Pakistan war last September, is being diverted to pay for imported food and shipping costs. Uncertainty about foreign exchange resources persists and has caused a delay in

launching India's fourth fiveyear plan, which was to start at the beginning of April. United States aid has started to flow and the Indian 'Government is looking to America for more assistance to help realise the plan’s targets.

In helping to starve off famine, the United States has already played a major part, contributing more than twothirds of the emergency assistance promised to India since last December.

Eight million tons of American grain will have arrived by next September, and India will pay for them in non-convertible rupees. About 80 per cent of these will be returned to India in the form of 40-year, low interest loans for agricultural development. Also the United States will help India with the costs of shipping the grain, about £l4 million. By far the largest contributor outside the United States is Canada, which has promised nearly £29 million worth of food as a gift, and cancelled repayment by India of large sums still owed to her from a wheat transaction eight years ago.

Britain, with a £7.5 million long-term loan, and Australia with food shipments worth £3.2 million come next on the list.

Most other major contributors are the industrialised nations of Western EuropeFrance. West Germany, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland and Japan.

Other Help Two Communist countries, Jugoslavia and the Soviet Union, have responded to India’s appeal. In company with Iran, Jugoslavia also diverted some of its shipment of American wheat to India on a replacement basis. Other countries, like Kuwait, New Zealand and Greece, have given aid in larger measure than their size or resources led the Indian Government to expect. Even tiny Malta has mustered £39,000. Argentina, itself stricken by drought, has promised to make grain available for India’s needs, Chile has offered fertiliser, and some form of aid is expected from Uruguay. The Food and Agricultural Organisation is sending wheat and the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund is shipping milk powder to help mothers and their children. Gifts of cash and lorries from Pope Paul inspired a series of collections by the Italian radio and television an d newspapers like “La Stamps” and “Osservatore Romano,” which raised nearly £5 million. In Holland, voluntary contributions have risen to £2.4 million, with children missing meals to help India’s plight. Not all Indians welcome their increasing dependence on imported food, even when it comes as a gift. The former Defence Minister, Mr V. Krishna Menon, said recently that he would “rather see Indians dying on their feet than begging on their knees.” Many Indian officials, however, regard the world-wide relief effort as a triumph of effective responsibility among nations.