Thiruvananthapuram ∙ The Silverline Vega Rail project will not get financial assistance from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for the time being. The Ministry of Finance has responded to a query under the Freedom of Information Act that the project has been excluded from the JICA rolling plan to implement projects using JICA funds. With this, the question arose as to who would provide the foreign loan for the project.
Of the project cost of Rs 63,941 crore, 33,000 crore was intended to be borrowed from JICA. In January last year, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman informed the state government that the project has been included in the JICA plan. However, JICA suggested that it could not provide such amount of loan and that other agencies should be found. Based on this, K Rail has submitted an application to the Union Finance Ministry through the state government to find other loan agencies, but it has not been considered.
The current position of the Ministry of Finance is that the project has been excluded from the JICA plan and if the application for finding other loan agencies is to be considered, the report of the Railways regarding the technical and financial feasibility of the project should be received. In February, the Railways informed the Finance Ministry that it was not in a position to comment on the project. MT Thomas, a native of Kottayam Peruva, who is also an activist of the Anti-Silverline Committee, received the reply under the Right to Information Act.
At the same time, K Rail MD V. Ajithkumar responded that the Ministry of Finance has not yet informed about the exclusion of the project from the JICA plan. He said that the old application was removed from the rolling plan because the application given on the instructions of JICA was under consideration to find other agencies.
English Summary: Silverline out of Japan bank loan