This marks the completion of all major milestones for the greenfield project coming up on a 5,500-acre plot at Shamshabad near here.

Giving a break-up of the financial aspects of the project at a press conference here on Tuesday, Mr Kiran K. Grandhi, Managing Director of HIAL, said the equity part was Rs 378 croreand debt Rs 960 crore. The Andhra Pradesh Government would provide an interest-free loan of Rs 315 crore, besides sanctioning a grant of Rs 107 crore.

The company hoped that first flight from the airport would take off in the first quarter of 2008. GMR's in-house project finance team had done the debt syndication for the project.

The lenders' consortium included Allahabad Bank, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, IDBI (Industrial Development Bank of India), Oriental Bank of Commerce, State Bank of Hyderabad and Vijaya Bank. While IDFC committed Rs 200 crore, the banks' contribution would be in the range of Rs 100 crore-Rs 120 crore. Following the financial closure, HIAL would issues notice to EPC (Engineering, Procurement & Construction) contractors this week. The airport would commence operations within 30 months after issuing the notice.

The company awarded Rs 1,100-crore worth ALS (Airside and Landside) and PTB (Passenger Terminal Building) works to L&T and China State Construction Engineering (Hong Kong) respectively.

The project cost, which was originally put at Rs 1,418 crore, has now been pegged at Rs 1,760 crore, including a contingency of Rs 97 crore.

GMR Infrastructure holds 63 per cent in the HIAL while Malaysia Airport Holdings Berhad 11 per cent and Andhra Pradesh Government and Airports Authority of India 13 per cent each.

Though initially planned for 50 lakh passengers, the first phase plan was upgraded to handle 70 lakh passengers. "We have ample scope to scale up the facilities to handle 40-50 million passengers in the future," he said.