Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala’s flagship SilverLine Semi High-Speed Rail Corridor project has received a setback with its attempt to secure an overseas loan from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) failing.
The Rs 63,941 crore project has been excluded from the JICA Rolling Plan, which enlists the projects being implemented with JICA funds, according to an RTI reply from the Union Ministry of Finance.
The state is now left staring at the big question of sourcing the overseas loan of Rs 33, 000 crore, nearly half of the total estimated project cost.
The K-Rail had proposed to the Central government the name of JICA for foreign funding. In January last year, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the state that the project was included in the JICA Plan.
However, JICA conveyed its inability to fund the huge loan amount and suggested the inclusion of other agencies too. On this basis, the K-Rail, through the state government, submitted an application to the Centre to find other funding agencies. However, the same was not considered by the Centre.
The current stance of the Union Finance Ministry is that the project was excluded from the JICA Plan, and it requires a report from the Indian Railways on the Technical-Financial feasibility of the project for considering the application to determine other funding agencies.
The Railways informed the Finance Ministry in February that there was not any situation that warrants an opinion on the project and that the same was at a very nascent stage.
The Finance Ministry's reply was obtained in response to an RTI query filed by K-Rail Virudha Samiti activist M.T. Thomas, a native of Peruva in Kottayam.
Meanwhile, K-Rail Managing Director V. Ajithkumar responded that Union Finance Ministry is yet to inform the agency about the project's exclusion from the JICA Plan.
The Centre might have excluded the old application from the Rolling Plan since it was considering the request submitted under the direction of JICA to find other funding agencies, he said.
