MMRDA looking at World Bank for more funding

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) on Friday asked the World Bank (WB) to priorities its funding and move beyond the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), which the bank has partly funded.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) on Friday asked the World Bank (WB) to priorities its funding and move beyond the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), which the bank has partly funded. The MMRDA is now looking at WB to fund more big-ticket projects like the future Metro corridors and the proposed multi-modal corridors.

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Although WB officials refused to comment, a senior MMRDA official said: “We made detailed presentations on the funding that we would require for other big-ticket projects. This was just one in a series of meetings that have been planned to that end.”

The meeting came weeks after MMRDA had approached the Centre, asking for more funds for the remaining Metro routes. The Hindustan Times had reported that in a bid to reduce costs, the MMRDA had re-aligned some Metro routes. "The Centre had assured us of providing viability gap funding (VGF) of up to 40% of the project cost. The problem is that many of our Metro routes have a VGF that exceeds 40% and so the funding of such routes might be a problem. It’s here that we hope the WB steps in,” said a senior MMRDA official.

VGF is part of the total project cost that the government provides, to make the public-private partnership model of the project financially feasible for the private body. Even WB officials at the meeting made a presentation of the amount that they intend to spend. Even though the exact amount quoted was not revealed, an official present said, “The WB officials said they would come back to us in a few days, fitting our needs in the amount that they intend to spend.”