Times of India: Surat: Friday, June 15, 2018.
The Airports
Authority of India (AAI) has sought cooperation from the builders and the Surat
Municipal Corporation (SMC) for resurvey of buildings obstructing the runway at
Surat airport, which will kick-start from Friday.
Senior
officials from AAI’s Mumbai and Delhi headquarters had visited the Diamond City
on Thursday to hold discussions with the officials of SMC, CREDAI and those
realtors whose buildings are obstructing the flight path.
The AAI has
awarded the contract to a private agency based in Nashik to survey the building
height obstructing the path of the runway at Surat airport.
Talking with
TOI, airport director Dilip Sajnani said, “The survey will start from Friday.
We hope to complete it in the next 10 to 15 days.”
The AAI
awarded the third party contract following a series of RTIs (right to
information) filed by activists in the city for inaction.
The RTI data
given by SMC and the AAI revealed that 18 residential buildings towards Vesu
side of the runway at Surat airport are obstructing the landing of aircrafts.
The builders and architects provided proper data to all the authorities,
including the AAI, for obtaining NOCs (no objection certificates), but the
coordinates at the time of obtaining NOCs were different when the original
sites were surveyed in 2017.
The NOCs of
the 18 projects were issued between 2007 and 2013. The AAI did area inspection
in 2007 and the next inspection was done in 2017. However, the illegal
construction of buildings were taken up in the gap of 10 years when no survey
was done. As per the terms and conditions of the NOC, if the builders,
developer or architect provide wrong information, the NOC stands cancelled and
the structures need to be demolished. The obstruction of 12.30 metre is
actually hampering the development of airport. Recently, the DGCA (Directorate
General of Civil Aviation), Government of India, has displaced 615 metre of
runway due to building obstruction and the airport is left with only 2,290
metre runway.