Raxaul airport, established in this border town after the India-China war of 1962, has been dilapidated for long but now it faces a bigger problem in encroachment.

Landing any flight - civil or defence, in case of an emergency - is unsafe, the runway is in a shambles and till last year the airport did not have a boundary wall. For the residents, it was as good as a road.

The central government constructed the boundary wall last year following a hue and cry in Parliament. Bettiah MP Sanjay Jaiswal and former Rajya Sabha MP Sabir Ali took up the matter in Parliament but residents of Haraiya, Pantoka and Bharsamai villages still use a major portion of the airport to ride through on their bicycles, two-wheelers and four-wheelers.

"The Raxaul airport came into existence soon after the Chinese aggression of 1962, but at present it is not only in a shambles but the authorities are hardly concerned," said local social worker Anil Sinha. "This border is also often used by Maoists and suspected insurgents."

It is strategically important because the airport is barely 96km from Kathmandu, Nepal. Still areas around it are not prohibited.

Buildings have come up within a radius of 100m of the airport and cultivation is prevalent in farmlands very close to the runway.

In 2009, Haraiya police station officers had burnt straw bundles and removed encroachment on the airport premises following complaints from residents, but temporary encroachment continues to be a problem.

Raxaul sub-divisional magistrate Satya Prakash told The Telegraph that the administration does its best to remove any encroachment of temporary nature from the area but permanent structures have not come up around it. "We have received no such complaint from the Airports Authority of India personnel, the airport's custodian," he said.