The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC)’s Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) received a 500 million US dollar loan from the Asian Development Bank today.
This is the first tranche of a one billion US dollar facility with the ADB to build a 160 kph regional network to connect Delhi with neighbouring towns. The loan will specifically support the construction of the Delhi-Meerut RRTS route, one of three that are part of the first phase of NCRTC’s network.
“The project is expected to have a transformational impact on the development trajectory of the national capital region by introducing high-level technologies for RRTS, signaling, and station designs,” Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission said.
“Besides, the project will also support transit-oriented development (TOD) with systematic urban and land use planning around the RRTS corridor while promoting value capture financing (VCF) to generate additional municipal revenues, “added Yokoyama.
With a design speed of 180 km per hour and high-frequency operations of every 5–10 minutes, the 82-km corridor connecting Sarai Kale Khan in Delhi to Modipuram in Meerut in Uttar Pradesh is expected to reduce the journey time to about 1 hour from the present 3–4 hours.
The RRTS will have multimodal hubs to ensure smooth interchange with other transport modes.
The first tranche financing will be used for constructing electrified tracks, signaling systems, multimodal hubs and stations with design features that are friendly to elderly, women, children and the disabled.
The signatories to the loan agreement for the Delhi-Meerut RRTS Investment Project were Sameer Kumar Khare, Additional Secretary (Fund Bank and ADB), Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance who signed for the Government of India, and Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission who signed for ADB.