Hyderabad, Oct 19th: : Access to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad, about 30 km from the city, has now become smoother and faster with India's longest flyover thrown open to traffic on Monday. The 11.633-km long PVNR Expressway, named after former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, connects the Mehdipatnam area in the city to the Hyderabad-Bangalore National Highway (NH 7) en route to the international airport. Built by Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Authority (HMDA) at a cost of Rs.6 billion, the 17.2-metre-wide four-lane elevated expressway starts at Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital at Mehdipatnam and lands at Aramghar Junction on NH 7 to join an underpass.

HMDA officials say the facility would cut the travel time to the airport by 30 to 40 minutes. At present, it takes 45 minutes to an hour for a person to reach the airport from different points in the city. Chief Minister K. Rosaiah inaugurated the city's new landmark Monday evening and drove in a bus on the Expressway, which passes over some of the congested areas in the city and the outskirts. However, the inaugural ceremony was not without controversies. There was a stampede as several ruling Congress party workers gatecrashed to get closer to the chief ministers and several state ministers who attended the ceremony.

The PVNR Expressway was last scheduled to be opened on Oct 2 but the inauguration was put off in view of the death of Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, who had laid the foundation stone for the project. Since the down and up ramps are yet to be completed, the motorists will have to be careful while getting on to the expressway as they will not be able to get down before covering the entire distance. However, median gaps have been provided at three points as a temporary measure for emergency U-turns.