India rejects Imran Khan's offer on cash transfer programme, says our stimulus package equivalent to Pak GDP

Rejecting Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's offer of technical assistance in sharing the expertise of their cash transfer program, India said on Thursday that it would hardly be wise to seek help and advice from a "debt-ridden nation". India also reminded Islamabad that "India has a stimulus package as large as Pakistan's annual GDP".

Reminding Pakistan of how it used up its reserves to finance terror, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava, during a weekly briefing, said Pakistan is better known for making cash transfers to bank accounts outside the country rather than helping the poor.

"Pakistan is better known for making cash transfers to bank accounts outside the country rather than giving to its own people. Clearly, Imran Khan needs a new set of advisers and better information," the MEA spokesperson said.

He added: "We all know about their debt problem [almost 90% of GDP] and how much they have pressed for debt restructuring. It would also be better for them to remember that India has a stimulus package, which is as large as Pakistan's annual GDP."

Last month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a Rs 20 lakh crore economic stimulus package for various key sectors to deal with the adverse impact of the pandemic.

The response by the MEA came hours after Imran Khan, in a series of tweets, offered to share with India Pakistan's experience of implementing its "successful" cash transfer programme following reports of how poor people in India are battling poverty in view of the coronavirus lockdown.

Imran Khan on Thursday, in a tweet, made the offer by citing a study titled "How Are Indian Households Coping Under the Covid-19 Lockdown? 8 Key Findings", carried out by experts at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago and the Mumbai-based Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (CMIE), published in a news article.

"Acc to this report, 34 per cent of households across India will not be able to survive for more than a week without add assistance. I am ready to offer help & share our successful cash transfer prog, lauded internationally for its reach & transparency, with India," Imran Khan tweeted.

Lauding his government's programme in reaching out to the economically weaker sections, Imran Khan said, "Our government successfully transferred Rs 120 billion in 9 weeks to over 10 million families in a transparent manner to deal with the Covid-19 fallout on the poor."

"I am ready to offer help and share our successful cash transfer programme, lauded internationally for its reach and transparency, with India," Imran Khan added.

The five states with households in most urgent need for funds - based upon a two-week survival study - are Jharkhand, Bihar, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala.

The study said, "The need for resources -- such as the sustained and broad base of transfers -- is urgent as nearly all households will be unable to survive without transfers in the medium-run."

This is contrary to the reports where India's stimulus package and efforts of the Indian administration has been lauded by international organisations and countries.