Vijayawada: Two funding agencies, KFW from Germany and AFD from France, have arrived at the capital.
A team consisting of 10 members from the two agencies held detailed discussions with N. Ramakrishna Reddy, MD of the Amaravati Metro Rail Corporation (AMRC), regarding the fund-scheduling process, on Tuesday. “The process of opening tenders will be completed by February 20 and work will be finalised by the third week of March; and so the funding agencies wish to examine the progress,” Mr Reddy said.
The AFD team consisted of project manager (transport division) Mathieu Vedure, project manager (environment and social division) Sylvaine Bernard Srini-vasan, deputy director (India) Herve Dubreuil and project coordinator (urban transport, AFD) Rajnish Ahuja. The KFW team consisted of Robert Volkovic, Julia Scholtes, Usha Ro and D. Skambracks.
Funding agencies from France and Germany are visiting the capital for the third time within a span of nine months. Their meeting with the officials of the Amara-vati Metro Development Authority has generated interest among the top bosses of the government as they worry about the recent protests at Nidamanuru regarding land acquisition for the Metro work. A four-member team from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) had inspected the proposed metro corridors in the city in April last year.
Mr Ramakrishna Reddy had then met with the team, and said that the JICA would release a loan of Rs 4,200 crore by July.
The loan was being issued on condition of a moratorium of 10 years. However, JICA later went on to add too many more conditions, which made the investment infeasible to the AMRC. JICA’s exit from the deal was announced in August. According to the AMRC managing director, the state government had already released Rs 300 crore for land acquisition then.
The German and French funding agencies had previously visited the capital on November 10 to conduct a dialogue with the Amaravati Metro Rail Corporation (AMRC) authorities. After JICA’s exit from the investment, the AMRC has been making an effort to find a meaningful investment partner, and KFW and AFD have been roped in for the same.
The state government released Rs 300 crore for the Vijayawada Metro Rail project in the month of August. The release of funds is expected to help the project work, which has been on hold for the past several months, to get off the ground.
