Kochi metro may get 30 Million Euros french funding

AgenceFrancaise de Development (AFD), the French financial institution, has expressed its willingness to provide a loan of up to 130 million Euros (over Rs 1,000 crore) for the Metro project.

The Kochi Metro project requires an external funding of Rs 2,170 crore, and KMRL plans to raise 50% of this amount through AFD. The French agency will provide the loan at 2% interest. They also give a repayment period of 20 years and a moratorium of nine years.

KMRL has already invited an expression of interest from various international agencies for preparing the social impact study and R&R policy for the Metro. The Metro authority has received interest from 15 companies and would soon authorize an agency to prepare it. The agency will have to take into consideration the existing R&R polices adopted by the Centre and state governments as well as agencies like the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

But the agency will give a final commitment only by the end of December 2013. The decision will be made after a detailed analysis by a team of town planning, rehabilitation and resettlement experts who will visit Kochi in September.