Pharma Zone — a dedicated cargo handling zone exclusively for pharmaceutical products — was inaugurated at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport here on Thursday.
Stated to be the country's first airport-based dedicated pharmaceutical cargo storage and handling facility, the Hyderabad Menzies Air Cargo Private Ltd. (HMACPL) is a joint venture between GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd. (GHIAL), the operator of the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, and Menzies Aviation of the U.K., with the former holding 51 per cent stake and the latter having 49 per cent.
The facility, which was inaugurated by Kiran Kumar Grandhi, Business Chairman, Airports, GMR Group, now has the capacity to handle 3,600 tonnes annually and will be able meet the projected requirement of 7,000 tonnes next year and 30,000 tonnes by 2015-16.
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Addressing a press a conference, GHIAL CEO P. Sripathy and HMACPL CEO Paul Smith said 70 per cent of export cargo from Hyderabad was pharma products. They said the state-of-the-art temperature controlled facility was designed to safely handle pharma products such as bulk drugs, raw materials, formulations, medicines and vaccines.
Some of its key features include temperature range tracking and monitoring with SMS, e-mail and audible alarm system and provision for customs and drug controller for rapid regulatory clearance.
With the Hyderabad airport handling a total of 1.5 lakh tonnes of cargo annually, they said plans were afoot to develop it into a cargo hub for the country. As part of the plan, a Free Trade Warehouse Zone was coming up on 19.8 acres adjacent to the Aerospace SEZ near the airport and a road feeder service network was also being established. The FTWZ would allow an importer to hold the merchandise and packaging, labelling and even assembling in some cases.
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