Bihar govt refuses to cut trees near Patna airport for passenger safety

The Bihar government is not ready to sacrifice all the trees around the Jayaprakash Narayan International airport in Patna, even though it has received an ultimatum from the Airport Authority of India(AAI) to do so by June 15 in the name of passenger safety.

"Let them shut down the airport if they wish to," Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said. "We will not fell all the trees in our green belt."

Peeved at the reported threats by AAI to stop all its operations at Patna airport because of safety concerns, Nitish said that officials should know that the operations of flights were the responsibility of the Centre and not that of the state government. "If the Patna airport is shut down it will be the failure of the AAI," he added.

The AAI wants the Bihar government to prune 2,917 trees in the Sanjay Gandhi Biological Park located near the airport. It says that Patna airport will be unfit for the landing and take-off of bigger flights, such as Boeing 737 and Airbus 320, if the long trees are not pruned.

"The length of the runway of Patna airport is only 1,924 metres, one of the shortest in the country, which enables Boeing 737 and Airbus 320 to operate from there under the present circumstances," an airport official, wishing anonymity, said. "There are altogether 16 flights being operated from Patna everyday these days, but if the trees are not pruned immediately, we will not be able to fly more than two flights a day."

The official added that if the trees were not cut, the airport's existing runway area would be re-notified, which would allow only smaller aircraft to fly. "It is for the state government to decide whether the passengers' safety is more important or the pruning of trees," he said.

Nitish, it seems, believes that AAI has been unnecessarily harping on the felling of the trees. "The AAI probably wants all the trees to be felled," the CM said. "This cannot be done."

Nitish stated that the issue of a shorter runway at the airport was being dragged unnecessarily. He said when Praful Patel was the civil aviation minister, he had met him to resolve the issue. "At that time, it was decided that the length of the runway could be increased towards the Phulwarisharif flank by slightly changing its direction. Everything, including land acquisition, had been finalised before the plan was suddenly dropped because of an official," he said.

Nitish believes it is all part of the Centre's design to ignore Bihar. "While new airports are coming up in other cities, there is no proposal to build one in Bihar," he said.

The chief minister also said that AAI was not doing anything to upgrade the airports at Gaya and Darbhanga. "Gaya airport has all the facilities but no domestic flight has been launched so far from there," he said. "Instead, it (AAI) is threatening to shut down Patna airport."

Nitish said that AAI had not informed the state government as to how much land it wanted to construct a new airport near Patna. "The state government will take necessary steps if AAI is ready to bear the cost of the land acquisition," he said.


In April this year, AAI had identified all the trees that needed to be pruned. A meeting of the officials of AAI and the state government was also held in this regard. But then, the park authorities suggested that it was better to fell all the adult trees than to prune them up to zero metre from their roots.

Since the trees happen to be in the 'protected forest' area, they could not be uprooted without the prior clearance of the Union forest and environment ministry, the state officials said.

The proposal was subsequently sent to the Union ministry and is still awaiting clearance. But AAI sources said that no permission was required from the ministry just for the pruning of the tree. "Permission is required only for the felling of the trees in a protected forest area," they said. "Pruning can be done without permission."

Trees, however, are not the only obstructions around the airport. There are railway cabins, mobile towers, temples and even a 135-metre-high, old watch tower inside the state secretariat near the airport that poses a threat to all flights operating from Patna.

The Patna airport has been facing problems in the operations of flights because of its shorter runway over the years. In July 2000, 58 passengers on board had died when an Alliance Air flight from Kolkata to Patna had crashed in a residential area near the airport. A subsequent inquiry report had recommended either relocation of the airport or the expansion of its runway.

Nothing has happened in the past 12 years.