New Delhi, Jun 02: In a significant development, India today decided to stop taking bilateral aid from most countries except a few major ones and prepay Rs 7490 crore worth of external debt this year in the face of ballooning foreign exchange reserves, now at over 80 billion dollars. "The finance ministry has decided to discontinue receiving aid from partners other than Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, European Commission and the Russian Federation," an official announcement said.

This is a follow up of the budget announcement, it said adding smaller bilateral aids from 14 countries totalling Rs 7490.77 crore would be prepaid.

The 14 countries comprise Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Austria, Kuwait, Spain, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Russian Federation, Czech and Slovak.

India's total outstanding bilateral debt from 20 countries as on March 31, 2003 stood at Rs 66,316.07 crore. Barring outstanding from Japan, Germany, United States and France totalling Rs 58,825.30 crore, the remaining Rs 7490.77 crore worth of aid is being prepaid.

There were no outstanding bilateral debt liabilities to United Kingdon and Norway, the statement said.

Bureau Report