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The Hyderabad Airport Metro Ltd (HAML) has decided to fast-track construction of the Airport Metro Rail, the foundation stone of which was laid on December 9.

In order to start the Airport Metro Rail ground works at an early date and fast track the pre-construction activities, the HAML decided to take up a number of activities in a parallel processing mode.

The company has engaged two survey teams to gather ground data for alignment finalisation. The data will be crucial for deciding the location of metro pillars and stations, their heights, profile of the viaduct etc.

Starting the survey work and to give directives to the survey teams, HAML Managing Director N.V.S. Reddy and his team of senior engineers inspected the Airport Metro route from Raidurg Metro station to Narsingi Junction on Sunday.

Walking the entire length of about 10 km, Reddy gave directions to HAMLA engineers and the survey teams.

He said the station locations should be nearer to major road junctions and the Airport Metro corridor shall be planned for dispersed growth of the city. He directed that the corridor shall serve not only the airport passengers but for reverse commute also as desired by Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, so that even lower income groups can stay in better accommodation in the city outskirts and reach the work places in the city within 20 minutes or so.

"The station design facilities shall cater to the present and future needs of commuters from different directions of the junctions in this high growth & high rise building areas, with multi-armed skywalks landing in all directions. Ample parking facilities shall be created on the available government lands nearer to the stations," Reddy said.

He also told the officials that while extending the existing corridor 3 (Blue line) from Raidurg station to the new Airport Metro Raidurg station by about 900 metres, the possibility of combining the extended Blue Line new terminal station and the Airport Metro station shall be explored. These two new stations can be built one over the other in view of the space constraints in front of L&T building and Aurobindo building after IKEA.

The Airport Metro's new Raidurg station can be at the first two levels; and the extended new Blue line station can be on the upper two levels, he said.

He also wanted the survey teams to plan Airport Metro Biodiversity junction station in a unique way to facilitate integration of the future BHEL-Lakdi ka Pul Metro corridor station.

The Chief Minister on December 9 laid foundation stone for the Airport Metro, which will connect the information technology district Hitec City to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad.

The 31-km-long project will be built by the state government at a cost of Rs 6,250 crore.