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MUTP gets $542 million WB assistance

The World Bank on Monday extended loan assistance totalling $542 million for the Mumbai Urban Transport Project.

The World Bank has granted an IBRD loan of $436 million and a development credit of SDR 62.5 million (special drawing rights worth $79 million dollars).

Legal agreements in this regard were signed here by Adrash Kishore, additional secretary, department of economic affairs, on behalf of the Indian government and Edwin Lim, country director, World Bank, on behalf of the bank, Ramanand Tiwari, principal secretary, urban development, on behalf of the government of Maharashtra and A K Verma, managing director, Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation.

The total cost of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project is $945 million. The remaining portion of $403 million would be contributed by the Railways and the Maharashtra government.

The MUTP is a multi-model project for the improvement and expansion of suburban transport system had has three components:

• The railway component aims at increasing of the railway line by 93 km, addition of 45 rakes, improving signaling and telecom system.
• Road-based component will focus on increasing of urban road by 45 km, building of 25 pedestrian subways, procurement of 450 new technology buses, implementation of 250 area traffic control junctions.
• The third component will be for the provision of permanent housing to 19,200 project affected families and interim transit tenements for about 6,000 families (already about 10,000 families have been re-allocated).

The IBRD loan has a variable spread over LIBOR and is a single -currency loan with a grace period of five years and a maturity of 20 years. IDA credit carries no interest. However, a service charge of 0.75 per cent per annum will have to be paid on the principal amount of the credit withdrawn and outstanding.

The maturity period of the credit is 35 years with ten years of grace period.

The project will be implemented over a period of five years and is expected to be completed by December 31,2007.

UNI

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