This is perhaps the first major cut since the lobbying of the US-India nuclear deal. India’s lobbying is being handled by the DC-based BGR Group.
The government of India has curtailed its lobbying expenditure in the US. India’s DC-based lobbying firm’s income for this year’s second quarter plummeted from $180,000 to $120,000, which is the first cut in almost seven years, the NDTV reported. The report said that according to the disclosures made by BGR Government Affairs, the firm hired by the Indian government for lobbying on issues surrounding the US-India relations, the government is spending less money to lobby issues in the US.
“According to the latest quarterly disclosure report filed with the US Senate, BGR has disclosed a total income of $120,000 from India toward “all lobbying related income from the client”,” it said.
It is mandatory for all lobbying firms to register themselves before managing lobbying activities; the firms are also required to file details on payments received, the issues for which the lobbying is being undertaken as well as the agencies approached for this purpose.
Reportedly, before the second quarter of 2017, the BGR’s quarterly lobbying revenue from the government of India was fixed at $180,000 ever since the last quarter of 2010. “Before that, the Indian government had paid BGR $60,000 in the third quarter of 2010 and less than $5,000 in the second quarter of that year, according to the disclosure reports filed over the years,” the news channel reported.
In addition to the “specific lobbying issue” that was “bilateral US-India relations,” the firm was also hired to lobby “issues related to the civil nuclear agreement” between the two countries till the year 2009.
The report also revealed that in its first year of business with the Indian government, which was 2005, BGR made $240,000 for its lobbying efforts on behalf of India. The matters surrounding the landmark nuclear deal were lobbied from 2006 till 2009; thereupon, the lobbying duties have been limited to “bilateral US-India relationship.”
In total, since 2005 the firm has been paid nearly $8 million.