"Where Did the Usaid Go? Unmasking a Decade of India’s Hidden Development Gaps

In 2023–24, India received nearly $97 million in development assistance from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The stated purpose, as with similar aid in previous years, was to support projects in health, education, and governance. This was not an unprecedented gesture. Between 2014 and 2016, during the later years of the Obama administration, India received around $89.8 million per year in USAID assistance, and about $87.1 million in 2016 during the early Trump era.

These sums, though modest in comparison to India’s national budget, are still significant, particularly in a country where every rupee spent on public welfare is contested ground. The natural expectation in a functioning democracy is that such inflows would be fully accounted for in public records — that citizens would know where the money was spent, on what exact projects, and what measurable outcomes it delivered. Yet this information, whether for the current year or for past tranches, is conspicuously absent from public discourse. In an era where the government declares “zero tolerance” for corruption, such opacity raises legitimate questions about whether this tolerance is actually zero, or simply zero in rhetoric.

This lack of transparency matters because it connects directly to a wider pattern that has unfolded over the past decade. The promises have been numerous and ambitious: two crore jobs a year, 200 smart cities, rapid urbanisation, and Members of Parliament adopting villages to drive model development. Each of these commitments implied measurable targets. If even a fraction of them had been realised in full, the India of 2025 would look dramatically different. Yet a decade later, unemployment remains a pressing concern, the smart city mission has seen uneven progress with many projects incomplete or diluted, urban planning remains reactive rather than visionary, and village adoption schemes are more symbolic than transformative. The gap between promise and performance is not just about political disappointment — it corrodes the very currency of democratic legitimacy, which is trust.

Development aid like the USAID funds exists in a parallel stream to domestic public expenditure. In theory, it should offer an additional boost, plugging gaps and supporting high-impact projects. In practice, without transparent accounting, it risks becoming invisible money — politically convenient to announce but difficult for citizens to track. This is particularly troubling because foreign aid is not charity without strings; it often comes with diplomatic expectations, performance benchmarks, and sector-specific conditions. When its deployment is not transparent, it becomes impossible for citizens to assess whether the nation is honouring its obligations, misallocating resources, or failing to deliver the intended benefits altogether.

The persistence of this opacity becomes even more troubling when viewed against the backdrop of India’s larger governance narrative. On national holidays and during key political moments, grand speeches from the Red Fort project an image of a confident, ascending India — technologically advanced, socially equitable, and economically vibrant. But the question that looms, as it did a decade ago, is whether such declarations translate into reality for the average citizen. If promises made in 2014 remain unfulfilled in 2024, what credible assurance is there that new pledges will fare any better? Trust in governance is not sustained by optimism alone; it demands evidence, delivery, and openness.

It is in this context that the words of the Hindi poet Adam Gondvi acquire a stark relevance. “Tumhari failon mein gaon ka mausam gulaabi hai, magar ye aankde jhoothe hain, ye daawa kitaabi hai…” The imagery is cutting: in official files, the rural picture is painted as idyllic, the numbers glow with promise, but in the lived experience of villagers, these figures are hollow. The poet captures a truth that is as political as it is poetic — that development on paper often serves more to decorate reports than to transform lives. His lines about democracy being loudly celebrated while feudal barbarism persists behind the curtain evoke the uneasy coexistence of modern electoral politics and deeply entrenched social inequalities.

Economic disparity remains one of the most visible manifestations of this contradiction. The “race between riches and poverty” that Gondvi writes about is not a metaphor but a measurable reality. According to Oxfam’s 2023 report, the richest 1% of Indians hold more than 40% of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 50% share just 3%. These figures are not accidental; they reflect policy choices, structural inequalities, and a system where public resources — including foreign aid — can be captured by elite interests rather than channelled toward equitable growth. The image of silver tables and golden goblets contrasts cruelly with the cracked plate in Jumman’s house, a rural household that remains excluded from the prosperity narrative despite decades of development rhetoric.

If foreign aid is meant to reduce these disparities, its impact must be tangible in the homes, schools, and clinics of those who need it most. But without public data, there is no way to connect the dollars granted to the outcomes achieved. This absence is not a minor administrative gap; it is a breach of democratic accountability. The citizens who are theoretically the beneficiaries of these funds are left with no basis to evaluate whether the promises attached to them were honoured.

The pattern extends beyond foreign aid. Domestic schemes, too, often suffer from a similar disconnect between announcement and implementation. Whether it is the construction of model villages, the creation of smart cities, or the delivery of job promises, the common denominator is the absence of systematic, publicly verifiable progress tracking. This vacuum allows political narratives to be shaped by selective success stories while systemic failures remain buried in silence.

To reverse this trend, transparency must move from being a slogan to being a governing principle. The full details of USAID funding — and all similar flows — should be made available in the public domain: project names, locations, budgets, implementation timelines, and independent evaluations. This is not merely about satisfying curiosity; it is about enabling citizens to exercise informed oversight, to hold elected representatives and implementing agencies accountable. In the absence of such openness, even genuine achievements risk being dismissed as propaganda, because the proof is hidden from public scrutiny.

The deeper question, however, is whether the political culture is willing to accept this level of accountability. True transparency threatens the comfort of both administrative opacity and political spin. It requires acknowledging failures alongside successes, and recognising that grand promises carry an obligation to deliver measurable results. Without this shift, the next decade risks becoming a replay of the last — filled with soaring rhetoric, partial delivery, and a widening gap between the India on paper and the India in reality.