Hyderabad Airport Metro: Survey Completed, Ground Work Starts With Peg Markings Along 31 Km Long Corridor

The survey work to fine-tune the metro alignment and station locations for Hyderabad Airport Metro has been completed.

This was announced on Tuesday (28 February) by N V S Reddy, managing director of the Hyderabad Airport Metro (HAML) — a Special Purpose Vehicle to develop and operate the metro line.

The agency has now taken up the peg marking work for the 31-km long Metro, which will connect the IT hub in western Hyderabad and Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad in southern Hyderabad.

The survey has been carried out by using a satellite-based Differential Global Positioning System (DGPS) and the Electronic Total Station with built-in programs for more accuracy and capturing of accurate coordinates.

Connecting Airport With IT Hub

The airport corridor will connect Mindspace junction near Raidurg Metro station and the city’s international airport located at Shamshabad after traversing along the Outer Ring Road (ORR) of the city.

Estimated to cost Rs 6,250 crore, the project is fully funded by the state government.

The foundation stone for the project was laid by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on 9 December last year.

The metro is expected to take just 20 minutes to connect the airport to the main city. Biodiversity junction, Nanakramguda, Narsingi, TS Police Academy, Rajendranagar, Shamshabad, Airport Cargo station and terminal are expected to be a few of the stations.

The project also called 'Airport Express Metro Corridor' would essentially be elevated but 2.5 km of the total stretch will be underground.

Peg Work

Peg Marking involves transferring the alignment onto the ground. This will facilitate preliminary works such as marking of Airport Metro pier (pillar) locations on the ground and taking up soil testing for determining the soil bearing capacity, designing of piers etc.

These boards will indicate the chainage that is the distance of that particular point from the starting point of Airport Metro.

While smaller-sized boards are being placed at every 100 metre as 0.1 km, 0.2 km etc, slightly bigger boards are being kept at every half a kilometre. The boards are placed in the central median from Raidurg to Biodiversity Junction; and from IT Towers on Khajaguda Road to Nanakramguda Junction where the central median is available, the MD said.

From Nanakramguda Junction to TSPA Junction, they are being fixed on the footpath side as the service road on the city side of the outer ring road (ORR) is under expansion and as of now, there is no central median in this stretch.

However, Airport metro pillars will be located in the central median of the expanded service road between Nanakramguda junction and TSPA Junction along the ORR, Reddy added.