MEGA PROJECT: Civil works in progress at Shamshabad airport site on Thursday. - Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

HYDERABAD: A year after the UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi laid the foundation stone, promoters of the Hyderabad International Airport coming up at Shamshabad near here have announced completion of site preparation works.

Works on the foundation of the passenger terminal building (PTB) have been completed as also 15 per cent of works on the building itself, which includes the air traffic control (ATC) tower. The promoters have set a target for completing the PTB, the ATC tower and a majority of the work on the runaway, besides commencing internal fittings.

Key features

The key features of the upcoming airport include a design to handle 7 million passengers annually, which could be scaled up to 50 million, A-380 compatible runway, modular terminal building and state-of-the-art IT facilities. Once opened for commercial operations, the airport's single terminal would be equipped with 10 contact boarding gates, 20 remote stands, 60 common user terminal equipment check-in desks and 30 immigration counters.

The main promoters of the Rs. 1,760 crores ($ 390 million) project, GMR Group, made a presentation to Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy about the progress of works on Thursday. Expressing satisfaction over the pace of work, Dr. Reddy expressed confidence that the airport would be completed by November next year following which the promoters would require three more months for statutory tests and securing licences.

ORR project

The Chief Minister said that the Government had pre-qualified 16 companies for the Outer Ring Road (ORR) project and the final list of awardees would be completed in the next three months. The Government had received proposals from Dubai and China for the project but it had decided to adopt Swiss challenge method to finalise the contracts. It was also in favour of HUDA completing the first phase of work so that developers of subsequent phases could adopt it as a model.

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