Central agency approves loan proposal for two Metro lines.

The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) has cleared the proposal for financial assistance for Dahisar-DN Nagar (Metro 2A) and Dahisar East-Andheri East (Metro 7) corridors from the Asian Development Bank.

According to the proposal, ADB will provide 52% of the project cost as loan for the two corridors which are estimated to cost Rs. 6,410 crore and Rs. 6,208 crore respectively.

'A couple of days ago, the DEA cleared our proposal for loans for Metro 2A and Metro 7 corridors,' confirmed UPS Madan, Metropolitan Commissioner, MMRDA.

Now, the Centre and ADB officials will discuss and finalise the loan pact. According to senior MMRDA officials, the Asian Development Bank is providing the loan at an interest rate of 1.2% and the loan tenure is for a period of 30 years.

Madan added that the bidding process for the Metro corridors will begin by mid-December. “We are finalising the bid documents with the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and will float the bid by somewhere around mid-December,” he said.

DMRC will be carrying out the task of constructing the 18.6-km Dahisar-DN Nagar corridor for MMRDA as 'depository work' which has 17 stations. The 16.5 km-long Dahisar East-Andheri East - with 16 stations - will be built on the service road adjacent to north-bound lanes of the Western Express Highway.

MMRDA officials said the post-bid process will take around three months as civil contractors will take time to design the plan of action and mobilise the work. The actual construction on these two lines is expected to start from around March 2016.

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