Hyderabad, March 1 (IANS) Hyderabad Metro Rail is expected to trigger mammoth economic activity in and around the city and provide employment to about 50,000 people, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K. Rosaiah said Monday.

The chief minister, who reviewed the Rs.12,132-crore project at a meeting here, said it would provide employment for about 5,000 engineers and about 45,000 skilled and unskilled workers.

He also hoped that with a requirement of about 26 lakh tonnes of cement, two lakh tonnes of steel and 58 lakh cubic metres of concrete, the project will help set up many ancillary industries and machinery manufacturing and servicing units around Hyderabad. This would give fillip to developmental activities in various parts of Telangana, he added.

The Telangana region, which comprises 10 districts including Hyderabad, is currently witnessing movement for separate statehood.

Noting that Hyderabad Metro Rail project is back on track, he asked the officials to speed up the process to finalise works with a firm deadline.

All eight companies/consortia that filed pre-qualification bids have qualified to participate in financial bids which will be finalised in April.

The new concessionaire is expected to be in place by May.

The ground work for the project will be launched in November and most of the sections will be thrown open for public travel in four years, while the whole project is expected to be completed in five years.

The companies/consortia qualified to participate in financial bids are: Transstroy-OJSC Transstroy (Russia)-CR18G (China)-BEML consortium; Reliance Infra-Reliance Infocomm consortium (ADAG); Lanco Infra-OHL Concesiones (Spain) consortium; Essar-Leighton (Australia)-Gayatri-VNR consortium; GMR Infra; GVK-Samsung (South Korea) consortium; Soma-Strabag AG (Austria) consortium and Larsen & Toubro.