Rajiv Gandhi International Airport

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Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, formerly known as New Hyderabad Airport, is under construction near Shamshabad about 30 km from City to serve Hyderabad, India. The airport will replace the current airport, Begumpet Airport. Scheduled to open in 2008, it is the second public-private partnership in the Indian airport infrastructure sector, with the other being in Bangalore.

The new Hyderabad airport is being built by Hyderabad International Airport Limited (HIAL), a partnership between the GMR Group (an Indian construction/infrastructure group), Malaysian Airport Holdings Berhad, Airports Authority of India (representing the Central Government), and the Andhra Pradesh State Government.

The new airport, once completed, will be able to provide much needed infrastructure to handle large aircraft, and international traffic. The airport is expected to be one of the best in this region and will house world-class facilities.It is being constructed to connect Hyderabad to all parts of the world from Hawaiin Islands to Wellington. The airport is being developed to cater to a total of 10.2 million passengers a year and will in the final stage be able to cater to 50 million passengers a year. The total cost of the project is Rs 1,330 crore. The airport will be built on an area of 5,400 acres and will have the longest runway among Indian airports and will be able to handle the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380. The work on the flyover linking Mehdipatnam to the Shamshabad Airport has started, and it is expected to be one of the biggest projects undertaken by Hyderabad Urban Development Association, also known widely as HUDA. The flyover or the bridge is called the Express Corridor, named P.V.Narasimha Rao Expressway, will be 13 kilometers long.

There was some controversy regarding the naming of the airport, as Begumpet's 2 terminals are named after Rajiv Gandhi, a former Prime Minister of India, and Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (also known as NTR), an actor turned politician. However, the Government of India decided to name the airport after only Rajiv Gandhi in 2005, who was the leader of same Indian National Congress which is in power right now .There is a proposal to connect the existing Begumpet Airport to the new airport with the help of rail.It is seen that the new railway line reduces the time of journey from Begumpet Airport to the new airport by 60 minutes.