Aqua metro: Rs.597-cr. loan agreement.

The Kochi Metro Rail Limited (KMRL) and German development bank KfW will ink an agreement on the disbursement procedure and schedule for the €85 million loan (approximately Rs.597 crore) that the bank will provide for the Rs.747-crore integrated water transport project in Greater Kochi area, on Friday.

Abraham Oommen, Director Finance, KMRL, and Felix Klauda, head of division, Urban Development and Mobility, KfW, will sign the drawdown agreement at the KMRL office in Kochi on Friday afternoon in the presence of Martin Ney, German Ambassador to India. The State government will contribute a sum of Rs.102 crore to the project under which 78 modern ferries will be purchased. This is besides the construction of boat jetties and development of allied infrastructure. An additional amount of Rs.72 crore will be spent on land acquisition.

Two variants of air-conditioned and Wi-Fi-enabled catamaran passenger ferries with a passenger capacity of 50 and 100 respectively are envisaged under the initiative. Sixteen out of 38 jetties will be developed in Phase-1.

Intelligent Navigation System and Operation Control Centre (OCC) are proposed to be integrated with the city’s intelligent transportation system. The Automatic Fare Collection system to be implemented by the Kochi metro will be extended to the water-transport system.

The ultimate objective is to make the entire public transportation system one seamless entity, with single ticketing, single network and single ‘command and control’ over all modes of transport, including the metro, buses and boats.

The project will be financed by the Indo-German Bilateral Cooperation, under the ‘climate friendly urban mobility’ plan.


THE HINDU