Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) signed an agreement with the Indian government to provide an official development assistance (ODA) loan of Rs.226.27 billion as the fifth tranche for financing construction of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High-Speed Rail (MAHSR) project. It is the largest loan commitment ever by the Japanese government agency in its history. The estimated cost of the 508-km MAHSR project is about Rs.1.25 trillion and JICA is slated to fund about 88 per cent of the financing requirement. It has been supporting the project by providing ODA loans with the cumulative commitment amount of Japanese Yen 1 trillion (`593.96 billion) since 2017. Extending beyond financial aid, this assistance includes a range of technical contributions, such as feasibility studies, fundamental and intricate design work, training programmes in Japan, collaboration on station area development and deployment of Japanese Shinkansen experts to work alongside the executing agency, the National High-Speed Rail Corporation.