Asian Development Bank, ADB has approved 500 million dollar loan to help India improve rail services. According to official release the bank has approved a multi-tranche financing facility for the Railway Sector Investment Program, RSIP. It will target freight and passenger routes in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, including the critical Golden Quadrilateral corridor that connects Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi. The RSIP is being carried out by the Ministry of Railways and will end by December 2018.The loan is intended to finance additional lines and the electrification of hundreds of kilometers of existing track, along with installing new signalling.ADB will also support accounting reforms to improve operational efficiency of Indian Railways.The loan has a 25-year term, with a grace period of five years. The government of India will provide counterpart finance of over 644 million dollars to cover the costs of the total program, estimated at over 1.1 billion dollars.AIR correspondent adds that the Indian Railways catered to 7 billion passengers and carried 800 million tonnes of freight in the 2010-11 fiscal.