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The US foreign-assistance pause announced on 20 January 2025 disrupted projects in India, with reported effects including withdrawn job offers, unpaid vendor bills and interruptions to community support. Scroll’s reporting documents specific people, projects and centres—not a nationwide tally: available sources do not establish how many jobs were lost in India or how many services stopped.
What the freeze changed for workers and communities
Scroll’s 2025 reporting describes several layers of exposure. Some workers were directly linked to projects or implementing organizations; others worked for smaller groups that received support through larger implementers. Vendors and service providers also faced unpaid bills. For people relying on local services, the concern was not employment but whether help would still be available.
Withdrawn appointments and expected layoffs
Consultant Gunja Kirti told Scroll that an organization withdrew a full-time offer for her to lead an India programme after it said it would not carry out further projects. Scroll also reported that a public-relations appointment in Delhi connected with the South Asia Regional Energy Partnership was withdrawn. The article described expected layoffs among field-level workers at smaller organizations funded indirectly through larger implementers, as well as 15–20 Delhi-office employees facing layoffs after a refugee resettlement, relocation and repatriation component reportedly ended. These are reported cases and prospective layoffs, not a verified total of completed job losses.
Unpaid bills and local support interrupted
Scroll reported unpaid bills affecting vendors and service providers. It also described an organization working in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh whose centres helped women file police complaints related to domestic violence and complete paperwork for welfare schemes. More than 300 women came to each centre monthly, according to Scroll; the article does not state how many centres the organization operated. Kirti told Scroll, “There is no place for those women to go now.” Her comment refers to women who had used those centres; it does not establish that no other source of support existed in those states.
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In another reported case, an unnamed NGO could no longer pay 18 sexual and reproductive health start-ups after a stop-work order. Scroll also reported that shelters and livelihood support for migrants or trafficked people ended alongside the refugee-related component. The examples show different kinds of disruption, but they do not establish that every service associated with a funded project stopped.
Which Indian projects and sectors were affected?
Scroll’s examples span health, reproductive rights, migration support, energy, water and sanitation, environmental work, education and civic participation. The funding and project figures below are those reported by Scroll in 2025; they describe disbursements or project budgets, not necessarily the total cost of a project or the value of services lost.
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| Project or area | What Scroll reported | What the example does—and does not—show |
|---|---|---|
| Health and primary care: Nishtha | USAID had disbursed $1.5 million to JHPIEGO for Nishtha. The project covered tuberculosis, HIV, adolescent health, pandemic preparedness, maternal and child health, and family planning. | Scroll’s figure identifies funding for the project; it does not establish that all associated services ended. JHPIEGO also provided technical assistance to more than 66,900 Ayushman Arogya Mandirs across 14 Indian states, according to the article. That broader work should not be read as evidence that all those centres closed or lost support. |
| Reproductive rights and sexual health | Scroll described a reproductive-rights research project involving the Family Planning Association of India and an unnamed NGO’s technical assistance to 18 sexual and reproductive health start-ups. | The NGO reportedly could no longer pay the start-ups after a stop-work order. The account does not provide a full count of affected workers or services across the sector. |
| Environment: Trees Outside Forests in India | Scroll reported $1.3 million for the project in 2025. | The funding figure is not proof that the whole project or every associated activity ended. |
| Tibetan settlements | Scroll reported $1.3 million for a project addressing civic conditions and representation in Tibetan settlements. It had been planned to end in August 2026 before the reported cut. | The planned end date shows the project’s intended schedule, not the number of jobs or services lost. |
| HIV: Project Accelerate | Scroll reported $1.1 million for Project Accelerate, which focused on HIV testing and treatment models and was scheduled to run through December 2026. | The report identifies a funding and schedule disruption; it does not say all HIV testing or treatment in India stopped. |
| Water and sanitation: Support for Urban Water and Sanitation in India | Scroll reported $1.04 million for the programme in 2025, with a planned end date of March 2026. | The figure and planned end date do not quantify the resulting service interruption. |
| Energy: South Asia Regional Energy Partnership | Scroll reported that a public-relations appointment in Delhi connected with the partnership was withdrawn. | This is an employment example, not a measure of the partnership’s full impact or the status of all its work. |
USAID’s India strategy for the 2024–2027 planning period listed intended cooperation areas including health security and pandemic readiness, education and workforce development, water and sanitation, and support for marginalized populations. It provides a pre-freeze map of priorities, not evidence of what happened to each programme after the pause.
What the funding figures can—and cannot—tell us
Scroll reported that $31 million in USAID funds had been disbursed to India for 2025 by the time the freeze was announced. It also reported $1.2 billion in disbursements to India over the prior decade and $554 million disbursed between 2022 and 2024. These figures describe funding at different time scopes; the $31 million is not a final full-year 2025 total.
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For health-sector disbursements, Scroll reported $16 million in 2025, compared with $79 million in 2024 and $120 million in 2023. The article’s 2025 amount is not a full-year total. Disbursement figures indicate money paid out, but they do not by themselves reveal how many Indian jobs were eliminated, how many project activities paused, or how long interruptions lasted.
There is also a global figure that should not be mistaken for an India count. Four weeks after the initial order, the Observer Research Foundation reported that nearly 5,700 of around 6,200 USAID-funded NGO contracts worldwide had been terminated. That gives context for the breadth of the disruption, not a number of Indian contracts or Indian job losses.
Why pandemic preparedness was part of the concern
Scroll quoted Dr Soumya Swaminathan, former WHO chief scientist and principal advisor to India’s National Tuberculosis Elimination Programme, on the capacity needed to detect outbreaks: “The early detection part [in a pandemic] requires that all countries have capacity – lab, data, people to do testing, and kits,” and “CDC was building this capacity.” She was discussing pandemic preparedness and the implications of reduced US participation. Her assessment describes a broader capacity risk; it is not a direct measurement of India-specific service losses caused by the freeze.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.USAID funding disruption is separate from FCRA restrictions
The USAID pause and India’s Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) licensing and regulatory actions are distinct issues. The freeze concerned US foreign-assistance funding. FCRA rules govern whether Indian organizations may receive foreign contributions under Indian law; a change in one does not, by itself, establish the cause or scale of the other.
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In a March 2026 statement, Amnesty International cited official data that 21,933 organizations had lost FCRA licences as of 26 March 2026. That is a figure about FCRA licences, not a count of USAID-funded organizations or freeze-related job losses. Amnesty also discussed a proposed amendment concerning assets of NGOs whose registrations are suspended, cancelled or not renewed. Aakar Patel, Chair of Board at Amnesty International India, said: “This amendment would be a blatant abuse of this legislation designed to further crack down on civil society under the pretext of national security.” This is Patel’s view of the FCRA amendment, not a statement about the USAID freeze.
The government’s SMILE scheme is an existing public support programme for transgender people and people engaged in begging. The official description includes rehabilitation, medical facilities, counselling, education, skill development and economic linkages. It does not say that SMILE replaces any USAID-funded programme described above.
How to read the impact without overstating it
- Separate direct from indirect effects: a withdrawn appointment at an implementing organization is different from expected layoffs at a smaller partner or an unpaid vendor bill.
- Separate worker effects from service-user effects: employment disruption and interrupted help for a community are related but distinct outcomes.
- Keep each example within its stated scope: the reported women’s centres were in Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh; the cited centre attendance is not a state-wide service count.
- Distinguish a stop-work order from a confirmed closure: a project’s funding or schedule may be disrupted without evidence that every associated service ended.
- Do not combine unlike counts: global contract terminations, Indian FCRA licence losses, project budgets and individual reports measure different things.
The strongest supported conclusion is that the freeze produced concrete employment, payment and community-support disruptions in reported cases. The cited accounts do not provide a comprehensive India-wide count of job losses or a complete tally of services stopped.
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