Mumbai, India – When the very first runway at Navi Mumbai International Airport ends up being functional in late 2024, Mumbai’s 2nd airport will have the ability to manage 20 million travelers a year.
Once finished in 2032, the airport will eventually have the ability to deal with 90 million yearly travelers.
The airport’s designer and the city’s federal government state the job is an important piece of facilities to reduce pressure on the existing Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, which presently accommodates almost 50 million travelers per year.
But some air travel professionals and activists are worried that the airport’s place postures a danger to air safety. They state the website’s distance to 2 significant bird sanctuaries and the feeding areas of a number of types of migratory birds leaves airplane susceptible to bird strikes.
So far, their pleas appear to have actually fallen on deaf ears.
Navi Mumbai International Airport is being integrated in Navi Mumbai, a scheduled advancement that forms part of the broader Mumbai Metropolitan Region, selected for its distance to the nation’s monetary capital and worldwide port centers. The airport website is close to the business district of Belapur, producing centers such as Taloja, Patalganga, Ambernath and Roha, and the city of Panvel.
The website is likewise situated little bit more than 10km (6 miles) from Karnala Bird Sanctuary, home to more than 200 types of birds, and near to mangroves, mudflats and wetlands that bring in migratory birds such as flamingoes, starlings, buntings and rose-finches. Many of these natural websites are being recovered for the building and construction of the airport.
SM Satheesan, a specialist in bird strike avoidance, thinks the brand-new airport’s place makes it “highly dangerous,” specifically when thinking about a bird strike case he examined in New Delhi some years ago that occurred far from any environment.
“I examined the bird remains and they belonged to flamingoes, despite there being no major flamingo habitats in the area,” Satheesan informed Al Jazeera. “Now at the Navi Mumbai site, where there is a flamingo sanctuary nearby, the flamingoes are going to create havoc!”
Satheesan said that ruining birds’ natural environments like mudflats and wetlands likewise makes it most likely they will venture onto the airport land.
“The runway offers a place for resting and feeding for birds driven out of their other usual habitats. It becomes a dining table … of sorts where birds can find crushed remains of smaller animals, insects and termites,” he said.
BN Kumar, head of the ecological advocacy group NatConnect, revealed comparable issues.
“Migratory birds have high site fidelity,” Kumar informed Al Jazeera. “The wetlands therefore need to be preserved to ensure that the birds do not venture into the airport area.”
The City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO), the collaborating body for the job, selected the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) to carry out an in-depth research study of the concern more than a years back.
Since then, BNHS has actually been releasing regular reports about bird environments and motions, which have actually been priced quote in the Environmental Impact Assessment report prepared by the Adani group, which is building the airport.
The reports determined 5 crucial wetlands in the location: NRI, TS Chanakya, Belpada, Bhendkhal and Panje, and stressed the significance of maintaining them to avoid birds from discovering their method either into the flight course of airplane or the runway.
“We are observing high tide roosting of birds, during the October to May period at the wetlands near NRI and TSC on Palm Beach Road and the wetlands in the Uran area,” the BNHS said in its 2014 report.
“These birds were seen moving in flocks from roosting sites to the creeks and open mudflats on the seashore for foraging during low tide and returning during high tide.”
Environmentalist Debi Goenka, the creator of Conservation Action Trust (CAT), said he has actually composed to several authorities about the concern just to receive no reply.
“We had written to the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and the DGCA [Directorate General of Civil Aviation], and unfortunately, we haven’t even got an acknowledgement, let alone a reply,” Goenka informed Al Jazeera.
In his letter dated July 24, 2018, Goenka explained that the BNHS report “revealed that the site is located in the midst of an extremely bird rich habitat. This location is therefore extremely unsafe for both air passengers and birds.”
CIDCO did not react to duplicated ask for remark.
A representative for Navi Mumbai International Airport Ltd (NMIAL), the authority accountable for building, preserving, and running the airport, said brand-new roosting websites were being established far from the airport to keep birds far from the website.
“Birds are attracted to roosting sites. Bombay Natural History Society has proposed roosting sites in the earlier reports across Thane Creek and South of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, which was away from the airport,” the representative informed Al Jazeera.
“The sites are being developed as roosting sites to attract and home the birds away from the airport.”
The representative dismissed issues that the website might be susceptible to bird strikes.
“It is important to note that the Karnala Bird Sanctuary is not in the approach flight path to the airport,” the representative said. “Additionally, the mudflats at Sewri across Thane Creek are more than 15 to 16km [9-10 miles] away from the airport.”
However, Deepak Apte, a researcher who has actually studied bird strikes in information, said activists are best to be worried.
“Bird-related accidents are usually rare, but in case of this site, these birds are getting squeezed into smaller and smaller areas, forcing them to form large flocks,” Apte informed Al Jazeera.
“Flock management is a challenge. We require sophisticated equipment to monitor flock movement, especially given how it is related to tidal changes.”
“Migratory birds follow the same patterns and rest and feed at the same sites every year,” Apte included, explaining any modifications to the websites are most likely to impact the motion of bird flocks.
Supporters of the job indicate the requirement to broaden Mumbai’s flight capability.
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport — opened in the 1940s — managed 4.5 million travelers and more than 27,000 flights in January alone, balancing more than 140,000 travelers and 882 flights every day.
“The passenger count recorded for the calendar year 2019 (at CSMIA) was 49.8 million,” the NMIAL representative said.
Following a quick lull due to the COVID-19 pandemic, guest traffic has actually gotten once again and is predicted to strike 49 million by the end of the fiscal year 2023.
“We will be running at peak capacity in the next five years, which will be around 55 million passengers,” the representative said.
“The Navi Mumbai International Airport is being developed to serve an ultimate airport capacity of 90 million annual passengers, which includes domestic and international passengers. It will also have 2.5 million Metric Tonnes per annum of cargo handling capacity.”
Environmental activists like Goenka, the creator of CAT, argue a much better website might have been selected for the city’s 2nd airport, consisting of a 728-hectare (1,800-acre) website near the city of Kalyan that was initially established as an airstrip by the British throughout World War II.
“There was a better site at Nevali near Kalyan,” Goenka said. “It was halfway between Mumbai and Pune and would have served both cities.”
“This land was already owned by the Defense Ministry. Moreover, this land already had an airstrip and would have been easier to develop compared to the Navi Mumbai land where mangroves are being reclaimed, wetlands and mudflats are endangered, hills have to be levelled and rivers diverted for constructing the airport.”
