The dream of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu to transform Hyderabad into the transit hub for air travellers between the west and the east would be realised when the Centre takes a decision on a new open sky policy.

The Union Finance Minister, Jaswant Singh, indicated at the CII's Partnership Summit in New Delhi that the policy could be announced in the next few months time.

Naidu had raised the issue with the Union Minister Singh and said 90 per cent of the work relating to formulation of the open sky policy had been completed. Both the finance minister and the civil aviation ministry were working in co-ordination towards the new policy.

Andhra Pradesh is currently promoting a new world class international airport at Shamshabad near the city for which the bid of a consortium consisting of the Bangalore-based GMR Group and the Kaula Lumper International Airport has been approved.

Naidu is keen that the multi crore airport should have better facilities than those at the world's best and biggest airports, especially those in Honk Kong and Singapore.

Pending completion of the new international airport, the government has already initiated action on improvements to the existing airport at a cost of over Rs 60 crore to enable it to handle greater traffic. Naidu's vision is that once the necessary infrastructure is in place, Hyderabad should be a transit hub for traffic moving from America and Europe to the Asian and the Middle Eastern regions.

Similarly, traffic from China and the Far East towards the Western world could also transit through Hyderabad.

In order to facilitate this, Naidu has been persuading the international air carriers to open new routes through Hyderabad. It is largely through his efforts that today there are 38 international flights transiting through Hyderabad every week --- 30 to various destinations in the Middle East including Dubai (15 flights per week) and Sharjah ( seven per week) and  eight to other Asian destinations-- five to Singapore, two to Bangkok and one to Kaula Lumper. The Malaysian Airways is also planning to increase its flights to/via Hyderabad.

Largely as a result of these efforts, the incoming traffic, both indian and foreigner, in the Begumpet airport jumped to 1,41,609 in 2001 as against only 99,710 in 2000.

Several of the Middle Eastern airlines have been suggesting to Naidu over the years that if only India opens up its skies, there could be several chartered flights that could bring in several thousands of  foreign tourists to points in India in general and Andhra Pradesh in particular.

Emirates have particularly been explaining how it could increase tourist traffic to Dubai because of the liberal policies of the UAE with the result over 20 per cent of Dubai's GDP is from tourism.

Andhra Pradesh has  identified tourism as a thrust area of development for the coming years and is expending large sums on providing the necessary infrastructure for promotion of tourism.

At the just concluded Partnership Summit, organised by the CII and the state government, Andhra Pradesh signed memoranda of understanding  for investment in several tourism projects.

Currently, over Rs 5,000 crore is in the investment pipeline under tourism alone.