United Nations, Feb 14,2023: India has paid its 2023 annual contribution of $30.54 million to the UN budget, according to a UN spokesperson.

India was among the 43 countries on its “honour roll” so far for having paid their assessments to the budget, Stephane Dujarric, the Spokesperson for Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said on Monday.

India’s contribution was received on Friday according to the UN.

India’s share is assessed at 1.044 per cent of the total budget of $3.217 billion.

Although that works out to $33.592 million, it is given a credit of $3.052 million that the UN collects from its Indian employees in lieu of the income taxes they would have had to pay.

The rate of budget assessments for each of the 193 member countries is worked out by a complex formula that is based on gross national income (which is the gross domestic product plus income from abroad), debt burden and an adjustment for per capita income using the principle of the “capacity to pay”.

Although India boasts of being the world’s fifth-largest economy, its assessment is brought down by the low per capita income diminishing its “capacity to pay”.

This puts its assessment lower than some fellow developing countries like Brazil with an assessment of 2.013 per cent or Mexico at 1.221 per cent.

The assessment for the US is 22 per cent, which is the highest that can be set for a country, working out to $707.897 million.

China comes next with an assessment of 15.254 per cent or 490.83 million.

Britain, the size of whose economy was overtaken by India, pays $140.775 million or 4.375 per cent to be the fifth-largest contributor with Japan being the third and Germany the fourth.

In addition to the main UN budget, countries also have to make contributions based on similar formulas to the budgets for capital, peace-keeping and international tribunals.

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)