KCR lays foundation stone of ₹6,250 crore Hyderabad Airport Express Metro Corridor

Hyderabad, India (Metro Rail Today): The construction work of much-awaited Mindspace Junction to Shamshabad (Hyderabad International Airport) will be started soon. Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao laid the foundation of the 31 km proposed Airport Express Metro Corridor today in Hyderabad.

"Hyderabad was a historically prominent city. At one point, Hyderabad was geographically bigger than the national capital of New Delhi and in terms of population as well" said the Chief Minister while addressing a public gathering after the foundation laying ceremony at the Telangana State Police Academy.

“Hyderabad was a real cosmopolitan city with people from diverse cultures, different places arrived here and are living peacefully,” the Chief Minister said, extending compliments to the Municipal Administration, GMR and Metro departments. He asked the MA&UD Minister KT Rama Rao to prepare an action plan for the future and projects for improving infrastructure in tune with the growing population and assured all support from the State government.

The Airport traffic too had increased sharply and keeping up pace with the increasing air traffic, a second runway was being developed at the Shamshabad Airport, he said, adding that Metro connectivity was being extended till the airport and the works would be completed at the earliest, he said.

To implement this project on time, Telangana government has already formed a special purpose vehicle- Hyderabad Airport Metro Limited (HAML) which would be responsible for development, construction, operations and management of the Hyderabad Airport Express Metro Corridor.

The Airport Express Metro link will connect Mindspace Junction to Shamshabad Airport and will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 6,250 crores. The entire project will be funded by the state government through the shareholders of HAML i.e. Hyderaband Metropolital Development Authority (HMDA), Hyderabad Metro Rail Limited (HMRL) and Telangana State Indusrtial Infrastructure Corporation (TSIIC).

The Airport Metro Express line is expected to take just 26 minutes to link the airport to the main city. Biodiversity Junction, Nanakramguda, Narsingi, TS Police Academy, Rajendranagar, Shamshabad, and the airport cargo station and terminal are a few of the stations that are anticipated to be built on this corridor.

“The metro rail line will have both an elevated and underground section, a third flyover will be built for the metro line at the Biodiversity Junction which will then slowly come down to the road level taking up 1km of the path and lead to the underground at the airport stations with a total stretch of 2.5 km being underground,” said NVS Reddy, Managing Director, HMRL.

Tender notice for selection of General Consultant (GC) for Hyderabad Airport Express Metro Project is already floated and pre-bid meeting has been recently conducted on 6th December 2022. Tender for construction work will be floated soon.

Talking about the speed of metro operations on Airport line, Reddy said that the present metro rail has an average speed of 35km/hour and can go up to 80km/hour at maximum, while the airport metro rail can go up to 120km/hour at maximum. The 31 km long stretch can be easily covered in just 26 minutes with the coaches being lightweight to increase the speed.

"The frequency of the metro will be eight minutes at peak hours and 20 minutes at non-peak hours and a few years later it is expected to come down to two and a half minutes at peak hours and five minutes at non-peak hours," he said.

HMDA and GMR officials presented cheques of Rs 625 crore each to the Chief Minister as part of their 10 percent each share in the Hyderabad Airport Express Metro project.