India has handed 75 passenger buses to Sri Lanka as a part of its help in the direction of strengthening public transport infrastructure within the cash-strapped nation.

As a part of its ‘Neighbourhood First’ coverage, India has prolonged multi-pronged help to Sri Lanka to assist the nation tide over its worst financial and humanitarian disaster since its independence from Great Britain in 1948.

“Supporting mobility and accessibility in Sri Lanka, High Commissioner handed over 75 buses for use by Transport Board. 500 buses are being supplied to Sri Lanka through Indian assistance towards strengthening public transport infrastructure,” the Indian High Commission right here mentioned in an announcement.

In an analogous transfer, India handed 125 SUVs to the Sri Lanka Police underneath a line of credit score in December to help the island nation and assist it deal with the intense mobility restriction points confronted by the police, because of the non-availability of autos.

The Sri Lankan authorities in May final 12 months declared a debt default on over $51 billion within the overseas mortgage – a primary within the nation’s historical past.

Extending a much-needed lifeline to a neighbour in want, India gave monetary help of almost $4 billion to Colombo through the 12 months.

In January, India introduced a $900 million mortgage to Sri Lanka to construct up its depleted overseas reserves because the monetary disaster started to unfold.

Later, it supplied a $500 million credit score line to Sri Lanka to fund the nation’s gasoline purchases. The credit score line was later expanded to $700 million because of the sheer gravity of the scenario.

The Indian credit score traces since early 2022 have been in use to import necessities and gasoline after road protests erupted as a consequence of extreme shortages of necessities.