MCD ignores rising bird hits
Even as bird hits have doubled in the past one year, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has turned a deaf ear to the issue raised by operator DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) in a 2008 meeting to control the menace, reports Neelam Pandey.
Even as bird hits have doubled in the past one year, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has turned a deaf ear to the issue raised by operator DIAL (Delhi International Airport Limited) in a 2008 meeting to control the menace.
In a meeting this year, senior DIAL officials in a presentation (a copy of which is with HT) said there was no improvement at Ghazipur Garbage Mountain. DIAL had asked the civic body to solve the garbage problem there as it attracts birds.
The civic body has said it will take another three months to start the process of reclaiming the Ghazipur landfill site.
“We are going to reclaim the sanitary landfill site and once that is done all the garbage will be wrapped in bales and there will be no question of it attracting birds,” said MCD commissioner KS Mehra.
According to the presentation made this year, more than one lakh kites hover around the garbage mountain, which often results in bird hits.
In addition, the Idgah slaughterhouse at Sadar Bazaar is also a bird-hit prone area due to the presence of more than 5,000 kites.
“We are going to shift the Idgah slaughterhouse to Ghazipur and after that there will be no possibility of birds hovering around this area,” said a senior MCD official.
“The airport has three runways — runway 9-27, 10-28 and 11-29. Approach for runway 28 and 27 starts from Ghazipur and several complaints have come from pilots about birds,” the official added.
According to DIAL officials, mountains of animal garbage attract a multitude of pariah kites and their population is growing. “The threat level to aircraft flight safety at IGIA due to the kite population, especially in the rainy season (July to September), is rated very high and removing this threat should be given high priority,” said a DIAL official.