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.