SURAT: Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) is confident of making the metro rail project a reality in the city by 2017-18. The confidence comes on the heels of guarantee of 20 per cent assistance from Centre as soon as the detailed planned report (DPR) is approved by Union urban development ministry and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation's offer of assistance to the project.

Municipal commissioner Manoj Das attended a joint meeting along with representatives of eight other cities with Union urban development ministry officials in New Delhi on Monday. Das said, "We have number of town planning (TP) schemes on draft level. Therefore, it will be easy for us to acquire the required land for the project." Top officials of Jaipur, Kochi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Surat, Patna and Lucknow attended the meeting.

Surat is looking at 100 km of integrated metro rail line. The population of the twin cities of Surat-Navsari is estimated at 1.20 crore in 2026. The project has a cost bearing of Rs 150 crore per km for rail on ground, Rs 250 crore per km on elevated corridor and Rs 400 crore per km in under ground section. The city also plans to link BRTS to the proposed metro. The 100 km of metro rail will incur a cost of Rs 15,000 crore.

Central Government recently said that every city with over 20 lakh population should have metro rail and had conducted a survey of metro rail facility in 12 cities, which included Surat and Ahmedabad. The working committee on urban transport estimated an expenditure in next five years for these 12 cities to the tune of Rs 175 crore per km for the construction of metro rail. Central government plans to disburse 50 per cent of finance for the projects in 12th Five Year Plan.