Patna International Airport faces survival Challenges

Jai Prakash Narayan International Airport, Patna is again facing survival Challenges. While AAI has threatened to declare it unfit for landing if some 3000 trees are not cut down, there are plans to making a new Airport at Sonepur.

The civil aviation ministry has threatened to declare the Patna airport unfit for Airbus 320 and Boeing 737 aircraft unless trees near the airport are cut or pruned for aviation safety.

The ministry has sent a communication to this effect to the Bihar government, giving a deadline of June 15, official sources said Monday.

Airports Authority of India chairman V.P. Agrawal’s letter to the Bihar chief secretary has made it clear that aviation safety is of paramount importance.

Bihar officials are busy chalking out a plan to act on the missive. A Patna airport official admitted that pruning and cutting of trees was vital for the safe landing and takeoff of aircraft.

According to the forest department, some 3,700 trees may have to be cut. These include semal, bamboo, amaltas, banyan, kusum and arjun trees.

Meanwhile, Space constraint at Jai Prakash Narayan International Airport in Patna has forced the state government to look north of the Ganga.

The government is mulling to develop a new airport for Patna in Sonepur, near the northern end of under-construction Digha-Sonepur rail-cum-road bridge. This is the first time that the name of Sonepur has been mentioned as a prospective site for developing a new airport for the state capital.

“The existing airport is facing location constraints and it would not be possible to make it compatible for future requirements. The upcoming rail-cum-road bridge (Digha-Sonepur) would play a major role in charting the future of the state capital. The government is mulling to develop the new airport for Patna near the northern end of Digha-Sonepur bridge. The bridge, once completed, would cut down the distance between Patna town and Sonepur airport site to 15km (at present, it is 30km via Gandhi Setu). Moreover, this airport would be free from impediments of land acquisition and obstructions in the runway funnel, as the site is a non-cultivable land owned by the government and has minimal constructions in and around,” a senior state government officer said.

About the proposal for a new airport, aviation scientist and chief executive officer of Bangalore-based Avembsys Technologies Private Limited Faizan Mirza said: “The new airport should be developed on international standards and should have connectivity to all airports in south-east Asia. The airport should have a runway of minimum 3,500m, which would allow landing of bigger aircraft, including Airbus A3AT and Boing 747.”

For the land required for such an airport, he said: “Assuming an average 20 per cent compounded growth in air traffic, the airport needs to handle 6.2 million passengers annually over the next 10 years and 38 million passengers over the next 20 years. To develop an airport with that vision, I recommend around 4,500-5,000 acre of land.”

So far, the names of Bihta air base and Biharsharif have been doing the rounds for developing an alternative airport for Patna. The officer said: “In order to develop the alternative airport at Bihta, the government would have to provide 1,000 acre in addition to the existing land on which the Indian Air Force airbase is located. Setting up the airport at Bihta seems less practical as acquisition of additional land would mean re-location of thousands of families. The Biharsharif site, on the other hand, would be quite far from Patna (40km) and would also require acquisition of large chunk of land. The final decision in this matter will be taken by the state government, after which a corresponding proposal would be sent to the Airports Authority of India (AAI).”

Meanwhile, the state forests department is in the pro-cess of sending a proposal to the ministry of environment and forests for pruning of 2,917 trees in Patna zoo as demanded in the AAI’s recent communication to the state government.

AAI has asked the government to prune the trees or else it would be left with no option but to re-notify the airport for operation for smaller aircraft only.

A meeting in this regard was held in Delhi on May 24 between senior officers of AAI and state civil aviation and state environment and forests department.

“We told the AAI about steps being taken by the state government to remove the obstructions in the aircraft approach funnel at Patna airport. We told them that a survey of trees at Patna zoo has been conducted by the state forests department. Now, the department is required to get an approval from the central ministry of environment and forests for felling the trees. The AAI gave no deadline for re-notification of Patna airport during the meeting,” said Ravikant, the principal secretary of cabinet coordination department. The state civil aviation department works under the cabinet coordination department.

The trees would pruned at different heights from the ground level. “The trees have been divided in seven categories on the basis of the height at which they would be pruned — 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 and 15 metres. We would send a respective proposal to the regional centre for environment and forests ministry, Bhubaneswar, in a couple of days. Their team would come to Patna zoo for ground verification prior to issuing the final approval,” said B.A. Khan, principal chief conservator of forests, Bihar.