NEW DELHI: India is set to fund bailouts in financially-stricken Europe, marking a dramatic role reversal from 20 years ago when it went knocking on the doors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avert a balance of payments crisis .

The government on Tuesday sought parliamentary approval to provide over Rs 9,003 crore (over $2 billion) in loans to the multilateral agency’s New Arrangements to Borrow (NAB), a fund whose corpus was raised to over $500 billion in March when the debt crisis in Europe showed no signs of abating.

So, from Greece, which has received $300 billion so far, to Portugal’s $100 billion bailout, India could be playing a part in the international rescue operations.

There are already suggestions that more funding would be required from the European Union as well as multilateral bodies.

Over the past two years, amid increased stress in the global economy, the IMF has been pressed into service on several occasions and has financed bailouts in European countries facing a crisis due to high levels of debt.

The 10-fold rise in the NAB corpus was the result of the new global financing order created by G20, a group of the world’s most powerful economies, in the post-financial crisis era. Along with the jump in corpus, membership to the elite club of NAB contributors was also expanded to include 13 emerging economies, which included India.

“The NAB is the facility of first and principal recourse in circumstances in which the IMF needs to supplement its quota resources,” the agency said on its website.