$500 mn loan pact with NDB for rapid rail project

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, November 19

The Centre on Thursday signed a $500 million (Rs 3,700 crore) loan agreement with New Development Bank (NDB) to fund one of its rapid rail transport corridors in the NCR.

Earlier in September this year, the Centre had taken another loan of $500 million to fund the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor.

The government also plans to borrow from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). Both NDB and AIIB are headquartered in China. The loan agreement was signed from the NDB side by its Chief Operations Officer Xian Zhu.

The loan will finance the rolling stock, signalling system, operational structures, residences for operational staff, train control and telecommunication system and other miscellaneous works of the corridor.

The 82-km Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut RRTS corridor with a project cost of Rs 30,274 crore will be co-financed under a parallel financing arrangement with these multilateral lending institutions.

The elevated corridor will have 24 stations for 70.5 km and 11.5 km will be underground. Civil construction work is in progress on more than 50 km of this 82-km long corridor, according to an official news release.