| Hyderabad International Airport Limited, the company building a new international airport at Shamshabad here, expects to commission the airport in 30 months, at least six months ahead of schedule, company officials said.
Speaking to reporters after a "concrete pour" ceremony at the airport site, Kiran Kumar Grandhi, managing director of HIAL, said the passenger terminal building (PTB), which has been contracted to China State Construction Engineering ([Hong Kong) Ltd for a lumpsum turnkey contract of Rs 615 crores, is expected to he completed in the next one year. The construction of the runway and taxiways, which have been contracted to Larsen & Toubro's ECC division for Rs 495 crores, is expected to he completed by mid- 2006.
China State Construction, a subsidiary of China Overseas Holdings Ltd. will be building a PTB of one lakh square metres, while the run way is being designed to handle large commercial aircraft like the Airbus A380, Mr. Grandhi said. The PTB is being designed to handle 70 lakh passengers per annum.
Civil aviation secretary Ajay Prasad. who 'poured" the concrete for the PTB, signifying the start of the construction, said that the existing commercial airport at Begumpet here, which is managed by the Airports Authority of India, would be used to handle IAF and VIP flights after the airport at Shamshabad is opened for business. "The Begumpet airport will no longer handle commercial flights," he said.
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