On an official visit to India, Japanese foreign minister Katsuya Okada today took a ride on the Delhi metro and gave suggestions to improve the system besides paying a visit to the Metro Museum.
On an official visit to India, Japanese foreign minister Katsuya Okada today took a ride on the Delhi metro and gave suggestions to improve the system besides paying a visit to the Metro Museum.
Delhi metro, which is being partly funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, an arm of the Japanese government, is one of the few metros in the world making an operational profit.
Accompanied by DMRC officials, Okada, who is here on a two-day visit, took the metro from Central Secretariat to the next station of Patel Chowk on the underground line.
Deboarding at the Patel Chowk station, the Japanese foreign minister went round the station and visited the Metro Museum there.
"He went through the entire station and spent around 30 minutes there. He made a lot of queries on the functioning of the metro system and also gave us some suggestions," DMRC spokesman Anuj Dayal, who also accompanied Okada, said.
Dayal said Okada visited the Metro Museum, the first in south Asia in an operational station, and was "impressed" with it.
The JICA (formerly known as JBIC - Japan Bank for International Cooperation) had sanctioned a loan of Rs6434.06 crore for Delhi metro's phase-I project.
The total cost for phase-II is approximately Rs20,000 crore and JICA is financing 49.19% of this project.
For DMRC's phase-II, JICA has sanctioned a loan amount of Rs9686.69 crore. Overall, JICA has collectively paid over 16,000 crore to DMRC for both phase-I and phase-II projects.
The JICA is partly financing metro projects in other cities in the country, including Chennai.
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