(Top) The airport building in Malda; and people and cattle walk along the runway. Pictures by Surajit Roy

Malda, Aug. 11: The Airports Authority of India has told the Malda district administration that the 70-year-old airport here is no longer fit for use because of encroachment on both sides of the runway and the presence of cellphone towers and high-rises in town.

The AAI has also asked the district administration to look for a 500-acre tract, not less than 10km from the town, for a proposed airport.

“We are trying to locate a plot for the new airport. But the AAI has not mentioned what will be done with the existing one,” district magistrate Pramal Kumar Samanta said.

Gautam Mukherjee, the regional executive director of the AAI, said there was no way that permission to operate flights from the airport can be given.

“There are obstacles on the runway itself and we cannot give permission to operate flights from there,” he said from Calcutta.

The district magistrate, however, is not certain if the plot would be available near the town. According to him, the land and land revenue officer is on leave and the district administration will look for the land only after he joins office.

Residents of the town and the Malda Merchants Chamber of Commerce have been demanding an airport for the past 15 years. They have also written to the AAI many times. Congress MP from Malda Abu Hashem Khan Chowdhury had also met aviation minister Praful Patel several times over this issue.

Even when the Congress chairperson Sonia Gandhi had arrived here two years ago, the district Congress leadership had met her with the demand. The AAI had constructed a wall around the existing airport for Rs 2 crore last year. But it has done little to stop the problem of encroachment along the runway.

The airport, with a 3500-feet runway, had suffered severe damage during the floods in 1998.

“The existing airport has several problems mostly created by high-rises, cellphone towers and encroachment. The AAI is no longer interested to run aircraft from this place for security reasons,” Khan Chowdhury said. He, however, felt that there would be no dearth of land for the proposed airport.

Acres of plot are lying idle in Old Malda, close to the town — the state government has only to acquire the land, he said.