6-month action plan to get make city airport bird-hits free

The Odisha government has prepared a six-month action plan to make the Biju Patnaik International Airport (BPIA) here bird-hit free.

Though the incidence of bird hits in BPIA has substantially come down in the last few months, measures were being taken to totally avoid such situations, Chief Secretary A P Padhi said.

Padhi, who presided over the meeting of Airport Environment Management Committee here, said the prime concern of the city airport was bird hits.

"However, due to our efforts in the last few months, the number of bird hit cases has come down appreciably," he said, adding that while the number of bird hit incidents were 19 in 2011, it had come down to 11 in 2016.
 

Padhi said the meeting decided to take steps like drainage, tree pruning, disposal of garbage from slums in near the airport, regulate open sale of meat, fish and chicken by unauthorised and unregistered shops.

"A six-month action plan was drawn up at the meeting to further bring down the incident of bird hits," he said.

Padhi said instructions have been given to the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, Commissionerate Police, Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology and the Forest and Environment department to put up their combined efforts to bring down the bird hit incidents in the city airport.

"Basically, it is a risk management job and we have to constantly monitor the situation," Padhi said.

Director of the airport, Ramaswami Mahalingam, said such meetings are held in every six months to take stock of bird hazards and animal management in the airport periphery.

"We have solved the drainage issue. This was a major problem as birds are generally found where there is water. Since there was drainage problem, the water used to stagnate and attract more birds," Mahalingam said.

Drainage work is completed and there is no water stagnation now, he said adding that as a result, the number of birds in the airport periphery has drastically come down, he said.