Silver Line Semi-High Speed Rail: Fin Min Asks Kerala To Expedite Land Acquisition For The State’s Biggest Project Yet

In a major infrastructure development and connectivity boost for the State of Kerala, the Centre has approved the debt-fund raising plan for the construction of Rs 64,000 crore semi-high speed rail corridor between the State capital of Thiruvananthapuram and Kasaragod. It has also asked the state government to expedite land acquisition for the same, reports Economic Times.

The project which has been named as 'Silver Line' will be the biggest infrastructure project for the State till date. It will bring down the time taken to cover the 529.45 kilometres distance in four hours as against 12 hours in the present day. Also, the time taken to travel between Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi will be cut short from over four hours now to flat 90 minutes.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has asked the nodal implementation agency for the ambitious project, Kerela Rail Development Corporation (K-Rail) to expedite land acquisition after obtaining necessary clearances.

K-Rail has also been directed by the Centre to re-engage with Japan International Cooperation Agency to finalise its new funding plan. This gains significance as JICA had earlier agreed to finance Rs 33,700 crore which had also received the Centre's approval. However, JICA thereafter decided to massively curtailed its exposure.

Under the new funding plan, K-Rail has halved the JICA loan to about $2.5 billion from earlier $4.6 billion. It now looks to raise $1 billion from the Asian Development Bank and $500 million from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. It is also seeking to raise another $460 million loan from the German development agency KfW.