India Delivered About 1,058 Tonnes of Relief to Sri Lanka Within 11 Days of Launching Operation Sagar Bandhu, the Latest of Its Relief Missions and Credit Lines in the Region

Operation Sagar Bandhu began on 28 November 2025, a day after Cyclone Ditwah made landfall in Sri Lanka. By 9 December the High Commission of India in Colombo counted about 1,058 tonnes of relief material delivered, along with a field hospital staffed by 78 medical personnel that had been airlifted in on 2 December.

That operation sits inside a policy the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) calls Neighbourhood First. The ministry’s page on lines of credit, which are concessional loan facilities routed through India’s Exim Bank, says its neighbourhood credit reflects the priority the policy gives to neighbours, with regional connectivity a special focus. As of August 2024 it lists US$ 7.862 billion for Bangladesh, more than US$ 2 billion for Sri Lanka, US$ 1.43 billion for the Maldives and US$ 745 million for Myanmar. A Press Information Bureau (PIB) backgrounder of 18 June 2025 describes the policy as “consultative, non-reciprocal and outcome-focused”.

Sri Lanka, 28 November to 9 December 2025

The High Commission’s release of 9 December says INS Vikrant and INS Udaygiri gave immediate rescue and relief help on 28 November, and INS Sukanya followed on 1 December. Two columns of the National Disaster Response Force, 80 experts with sniffer dogs, arrived on 29 November and returned on 5 December after finishing search and rescue. Two Indian Air Force Mi-17 helicopters evacuated 264 survivors and airlifted about 50 tonnes of supplies between 29 November and 6 December.

The field hospital at Mahiyanganaya, near Kandy, was treating about 1,200 patients a day by 9 December. Another 248 tonnes of Bailey bridge units arrived by air with 44 engineers, and the first bridge was being built on the A35 road at Kilinochchi. Four Navy vessels, INS Gharial and three landing craft, brought about 1,000 tonnes of food and clothing sent by the Tamil Nadu government. About 2,500 stranded Indians were evacuated, more than 400 of them on Air Force aircraft.

A 120-foot Bailey bridge weighing 110 tonnes opened in Kilinochchi District on 23 December 2025, according to the PIB backgrounder of 15 February 2026. Its current bilateral page puts the final relief at more than 1,123 tonnes and the field hospital’s caseload at more than 7,000 patients. In December 2025, the page says, the External Affairs Minister announced a US$ 450 million package of US$ 350 million in rupee-denominated credit lines and US$ 100 million in grants, spread over five sectors that include railways, bridges and housing. Five Bailey bridges had been inaugurated and work on the damaged Northern Railway line had started. For the Navy’s 2026 shipbuilding record, see its list of commissionings.

The 2022 package behind the 4 billion dollar figure

MEA’s 2025 brief on Sri Lanka says India gave “close to USD 4 billion” of multi-faceted assistance during the economic crisis of 2022. It names five items: a US$ 500 million line of credit for petroleum products, a US$ 400 million currency swap from the Reserve Bank of India, a US$ 1 billion credit facility for food, medicines, fuel and industrial raw materials, a deferment of about US$ 2 billion in Asian Clearing Union settlements, and a US$ 55 million credit line for urea fertiliser. Those five add up to US$ 3.955 billion. The brief says donated medicines, essential food and kerosene came on top, without putting a price on them.

The High Commission’s current page gives US$ 4.1 billion for the emergency assistance and says the deferred settlements were restructured into a single liability of US$ 2.6 billion under a Special Swap Agreement. At the MEA briefing of 5 April 2025, an official said India had concluded the debt restructuring process with Sri Lanka through the exchange of bilateral amendatory agreements. Most of the 2022 items are credit, a swap or a deferral that Sri Lanka repays, which is how the MEA brief itself lists them.

The same brief records two earlier sea responses: the Navy and Coast Guard assisted in Sri Lankan waters to avert environmental damage from MT New Diamond in September 2020 and MV XPress Pearl in May 2021.

Nepal: Operation Maitri and a power grid that runs both ways

After the April 2015 earthquake, PIB’s backgrounder says, the Air Force began relief operations within four hours and rescued 11,200 people. Aircraft flew in 295 NDRF personnel and 46.5 tonnes of relief material. The reconstruction pledge was US$ 1 billion, on top of an existing US$ 1 billion programme. According to MEA’s 2026 brief, that money paid for 50,000 houses, finished by 2021, plus 70 schools and a library and 125 health facilities. Floods in September 2024 brought 25 tonnes of Indian aid and 10 prefabricated steel bridges, and the heavy rains of October 2025 brought a grant of ten bridges of 70 metres or longer for eastern Nepal.

On power, the 2014 Power Trade Agreement envisages 10,000 MW of exports from Nepal to India. Nepal exported about 1,100 MW to India in the previous year, the brief says, and also sent electricity to Bangladesh through the Indian grid. That 40 MW trilateral flow is dated in MEA’s Bangladesh brief: the agreement came in October 2024 and actual transmission began on 15 June 2025. The Muzaffarpur to Dhalkebar line is working, with its Nepal section built with Indian assistance, and SJVN, an Indian public-sector company, is developing the 900 MW Arun-III station. The first regional cross-border petroleum pipeline, from Raxaul to Amlekhgunj (41 km), opened in 2019, funded and built by Indian Oil Corporation.

Bhutan: 3,156 megawatts built together

MEA’s November 2025 brief says India has jointly developed five hydroelectric projects in Bhutan with a combined 3,156 MW: Chukha at 336 MW, Kurichhu at 60 MW, Tala at 1,020 MW, Mangdechhu at 720 MW, and Punatsangchhu-II at 1,020 MW, completed in August 2025. Punatsangchhu-I, at 1,200 MW, is under construction. Grants for Bhutan’s 13th Five Year Plan are set at INR 10,000 crore, twice the INR 5,000 crore given for the 12th.

On 29 September 2025 the two governments signed a memorandum on two rail links: Kokrajhar to Gelephu (69 km) and Banarhat to Samtse (20 km), at an estimated cost of INR 4,033.34 crore. The brief also records full Indian support for the Gelephu Mindfulness City, a service-sector special administrative region proposed by Bhutan’s King.

The Maldives: swap lines, a rupee credit line and a new airport

Back in November 2022, MEA’s March 2024 brief records, India handed over US$ 100 million through the State Bank of India’s purchase of Maldivian government bonds, with an Indian sovereign guarantee. In December 2022 the Reserve Bank signed a currency swap letting the Maldives Monetary Authority draw up to US$ 200 million. On 7 October 2024 the Reserve Bank signed a new swap under the SAARC framework for 2024 to 2027: up to US$ 400 million plus INR 30 billion, valid until 18 June 2027, as what its release calls a “backstop line of funding” for short-term foreign exchange needs.

During the Prime Minister’s visit of 25 and 26 July 2025, PIB lists a new credit line of INR 4,850 crore, about US$ 550 million in the Prime Minister’s Office readout. The readout also says an amendment to earlier credit lines cut the Maldives’ annual repayments by 40 percent, from US$ 51 million to US$ 29 million. Handovers included 3,300 social housing units at Hulhumale, and the two sides signed a deal to bring UPI payments to the Maldives, part of the story told in India’s overseas digital payment links.

Two large projects are described in the March 2024 brief. The Greater Male Connectivity Project, a chain of bridges, causeways and roads linking Male to nearby islands, is funded by a US$ 400 million credit line and a US$ 100 million grant. The Hanimaadhoo airport redevelopment went to the Indian firm JMC Projects in September 2022 under an Exim Bank credit line. The Maldives President’s Office reports that the airport was inaugurated on 9 November 2025, with India’s Civil Aviation Minister attending as the Prime Minister’s special envoy, and that its terminal can handle up to 1.3 million passengers a year. On 25 July 2025, the Prime Minister’s Office readout says, the Maldives President appreciated India’s commitment to being the first responder in any crisis.

Myanmar, Bangladesh and Mauritius

India launched Operation Brahma after the earthquake that struck Myanmar and Thailand on 28 March 2025. PIB’s Defence release of 30 March says INS Satpura and INS Savitri sailed for Yangon on 29 March, with INS Karmuk and a landing craft to follow. Per the Defence Ministry’s year-end review, the first ship left within 12 hours. About 750 tonnes of aid arrived through mid-April, PIB’s backgrounder reports, including 442 tonnes of food carried by INS Gharial, 405 tonnes of it rice. An 80-member NDRF search team and an Army field hospital that treated more than 2,500 patients were also deployed.

Bangladesh imports 1,160 MW of power from India, MEA’s brief on that country says, and the 1,320 MW Maitree plant at Khulna was built with Indian assistance. Its Akhaura to Agartala rail link, inaugurated in November 2023, is one of six pre-1965 rail links restored. The Friendship Pipeline carrying high-speed diesel was virtually inaugurated on 18 March 2023, and India has extended nearly US$ 8 billion in credit lines.

Mauritius gets a first-responder section in MEA’s August 2025 brief: in April and May 2020 India supplied 13 tonnes of medicines, 10 tonnes of Ayurvedic medicines and a rapid response medical team. After the Wakashio oil spill began on 25 July 2020, an Air Force aircraft brought 30 tonnes of equipment and a 10-member technical team on 16 August. After Cyclone Chido in December 2024, aircraft and a ship carried food, water, medicine and technicians to the island of Agalega. Earlier aid included a US$ 353 million grant in 2016 that covered the Metro Express and a US$ 500 million credit line in 2017 for ten projects.

Vaccines and evacuations

Under Vaccine Maitri India supplied over 30.12 crore (301.2 million) vaccine doses to 99 countries and two UN bodies, PIB’s backgrounder of 18 June 2025 says, including 1.51 crore gifted to more than 50 countries and 5.2 crore through the COVAX scheme. MEA’s briefs record 500,000 gifted doses for Sri Lanka in January 2021 and 100,000 for Mauritius on 22 January 2021. The background to those doses is in how India became the world’s pharmacy.

That backgrounder also covers Mission Sagar, begun in May 2020, in which Navy ships delivered more than 3,000 tonnes of food aid, 300 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen and 900 oxygen concentrators to 15 countries including the Maldives and Mauritius. It lists two evacuations outside the region as well: Operation Ganga from Ukraine in February and March 2022, which brought back 18,282 citizens on 90 flights at government expense, and Operation Kaveri from Sudan in April 2023, run by the Air Force and Navy through Port Sudan and Jeddah.

Where the counts differ

Sagar Bandhu totals vary with the date and the measure. The High Commission counted about 1,058 tonnes delivered by 9 December and more than 1,123 tonnes in its current page, while the Defence Ministry’s year-end review gives 335 tons for material it describes as distributed to affected areas as of 9 December. Operation Brahma shows the same split: the backgrounder gives about 750 tonnes overall and the year-end review gives about 512 tonnes for the five Navy ships. Almost every source above is an Indian government document. The Maldives President’s Office entry on the airport is the only partner-government record, so the counts and the framing are India’s own.

The Bangladesh brief also notes that the Maitri, Bandhan and Mitali passenger trains have been suspended since July 2024 “due to security considerations”, while goods trains continue. In Bhutan, Punatsangchhu-I at 1,200 MW is the next hydroelectric project under construction.