Multilateral agencies such as World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) have committed $6.5 billion (around Rs 48,000 crore) to India to fight the novel coronavirus since April — this is more than five times the $1.29 billion (Rs 9,558 crore) that the government had estimated from these agencies this year in the Union Budget, which was presented a month before the pandemic began to spread rapidly in the country.
Much of this funding is being frontloaded for disbursal in the current year as an emergency response to the impact of the pandemic; some of the loan will likely come in 2021-22,…