NEW DELHI: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India today signed a $500 million loan, the first tranche of a total $1 billion facility, to build a modern, high-speed 82-kilometer Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) corridor that will improve regional connectivity and mobility in India’s national capital region (NCR).
The signatories to the loan agreement for the Delhi-Meerut RRTS Investment Project were Shri 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 Mr. Kenichi Yokoyama, Country Director of ADB’s India Resident Mission who signed for ADB. The first tranche loan will support construction of the first of three priority rail corridors planned under the NCR Regional Plan 2021 to connect Delhi to other cities in adjoining states.
“The project will provide better connectivity to allow other towns in the NCR to develop as urban economic centers surrounded by residential areas while easing the concentration pressure on Delhi,” said Shri Khare after signing the agreement. “Development of this corridor will have a huge demonstration effect and pave the way for a paradigm shift in mobility and the pattern of urban development within the region.”
“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,” Mr. Yokoyama 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.”
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.
—PIB

KR Desk