Bhubaneswar, June 26: Civic authorities here have finally stepped in to ensure safety of aircraft in and around Biju Patnaik Airport.

With repeated incidents of bird-hits raising a question mark over the flight safety measures, authorities of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) have finally decided to close down Gandamunda Haat, a market near the airport’s boundary wall.

The BMC authorities have also decided to launch a special drive with four to five enforcement squads equipped with public address systems to make people aware about the importance of maintaining cleanliness in the area. Unclean environs are believed to be the major cause of bird-hit incidents.

“We have already filed an FIR against a violator today who was selling chicken near Gandamunda Haat. The shop owners of this market were asked to relocate to a place on the city’s outskirts. After a tour around the approach or glide path of the planes around the runway of the airport, we have come across many locations where such shops are operating. We have decided to write to the airport’s director regarding this,” said BMC commissioner Vishal Kumar Dev.

“We have found a dumping site beside a culvert on the natural drainage channel No. 8 near the seed production centre of the agriculture university and have requested the water resources department to speed up cleaning of the channel near the site,” Dev said, adding, “The chief engineer (roads) of the public works department has also given his consent to construct a high-level barricade around the culvert so that after cleaning of the channel, people cannot dump the non-vegetarian wastes there. We hope this would check the movement of carnivorous birds.”

Another senior official of the corporation said there was a huge open dumping enclosure just near the entrance of the airport, which had nearly one tonne of waste including leftover food packets from the in-flight supply.

“As the area comes under the jurisdiction of the Airports Authority of India (AAI), they can tag it with the express cleaning service of the BMC so that the wastes can be lifted on a day-to-day basis. Otherwise, the wastes inside the AAI’s own area would attract birds,” he said.

Airport’s director, V.N. Chandran admitted that there was a need of ‘strict implementation’ of the air-safety norms around the airport. He also felt that this implementation would be all the more important as a new world-class terminal is coming up at an estimated cost of Rs 150 crore.

Stating that the state government has a greater role to ensure a zero tolerance zone to meat or chicken sellers in a periphery of around 10km of the runway (approach path) near the airport as per the norms prescribed under the Indian Airport Rules, 1937, the airport director said the routine meetings under the airport management committee would now be held regularly to discuss such vital issues. According to the practice, the committee’s meeting is held once in six months.

“Beside the control of garbage dumping and non-vegetarian food wastes along the approach path of the planes, there is also an ambitious plan by the Airports Authority of India to put state-of-the art sensors and vibrators around the surrounding of the runway to keep flying objects at bay. Already the AAI headquarters has planned to implement it in major airports of the country,” he said.

“The AAI has taken up bush cleaning work and started using crackers on several occasions to distract the birds near the airport’s boundary,” the director said.