JICA's Rs 400 cr loan to smoothen traffic on Delhi expressway

Japanese lending arm JICA will provide Rs 400 crore loan to India for computerised traffic control on the under-construction Delhi eastern peripheral highway linking Haryana.
It will cover 135-km tolled access control highway starting at Kundli in Sonipat and ending at Palwal, Faridabad.
An Intelligent Transport System (ITS) will be deployed on Delhi Eastern Peripheral Expressway to monitor traffic volume and control congestion at toll gates, JICA stated today.
The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is constructing the Delhi Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE).
"We expect that this project would not only promote regional socio-economic development, but improve urban environment through mitigation of traffic jams and decrease of pollution caused by increasing vehicles in urban area," Takema Sakamoto, Chief Representative, JICA India, said in a statement.

The Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS) will be launched to reduce traffic congestion and accidents and the Toll Management System (TMS) will shorten queues at toll gates.

ATMS will collect information on road, traffic and weather conditions at traffic control centres and transmit it to road users 24 hours per day throughout a year.
TMS will manage toll via radio frequency identification in which a unique tag - FASTag - is attached to passing vehicles and tolls are collected directly from a pre-paid account linked to a central server, removing the need to stop and pay at gates.
The agreement was signed between JICA's Sakamoto and S Selvakumar, Joint Secretary, Finance Ministry.

Japan International Cooperation Agency's (JICA) Official Development Assistance(ODA) will have to be repaid at 1.4 per cent interest for project activities and 0.01 per cent for consulting.
The loan tenure of 30 years includes grace period of 10 years.