The Rs 42-billion Visakhapatnam metro has found its investor! Find out here who it is!

The Korean Exim Bank will fund the infrastructure for the much-awaited Visakhapatnam metro-rail project. Reportedly, the bank will support the state government’s share of 51 per cent of the infrastructure cost for the project, worth Rs 42 billion. The money will be lent by the bank at an interest rate of 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent, for a period of 20 years. The Korean Exim Bank has reportedly offered the least interest rate among all the financial institutions that the Amaravati Metro Rail Corporation (AMRC) approached. The AMRC has earlier floated request for proposal to the five bidders of the metro-rail project. The companies to submit the bids are, Adani Enterprises, TRIL Urban Transport, Shapoorji Pallonji and Company, ESSEL Infraprojects and IL&FS Rail. The request for qualification was issued by AMRC in October last year, following which the companies submitted their respective bids. Based on that, the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC) chose the five companies. The Visakhapatnam metro has been planned by the Great Vishakhapatnam Municipal corporation (GVMC) to decrease traffic, as well as establishing decent pubilc transport. Recently, a delegation from South Korea met Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister willing to provide infrastructure support to the metro-rail project, comprising signalling system and metro rail coaches’ manufacturers, and track developers.