$200 million from World Bank for policy reforms in Chennai’s urban mobility

CHENNAI: The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has asked the World Bank, as a part of the city partnership programme, for a financial support for four of its development projects. One of which is development climate responsive footpaths along 100 km of roads. The World Bank has suggested to the GCC to include such aspects in the mega street project. The estimated cost for the same is ₹1,400 crore.

The four projects proposed by the Corporation are mega street project, on-street parking, optic fibre cable integration and the multimodal integration project at Broadway.

As per an official, the funds are expected to be released by October 2020. It is $200 million that the World Bank has planned to provide in the first tranche. The loan will be provided for funding policy reforms in urban mobility for Chennai and not for the corporation’s infrastructural projects.  

An official said that for the first time the World Bank is getting into a city level partnership for Chennai and the loan will only be provided if the policies are adopted. World Bank wants all the civic projects to be in sync with the sustainable vision.

Also, according to the officials, certain projects for unsustainable modes of transport like development of flyovers will not be funded by the bank. The Highways Department in Chennai was rejected of its proposal by the bank for development of flyovers, costing around Rs 16000 crore, saying that across the world in many cities the flyovers are being demolished. Also, the World Bank pointed out that building flyovers will be contradictory to metro rail project which is more sustainable and can help reduce cars on the city streets.