MIAL wants 200 trees on flight path pruned…..Sharvari Patwa
Trees are now posing problems for aircraft landing at Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. To remove obstructions for arriving flights, the Mumbai International Airport Ltd (MIAL) has sought permission of the BMC to prune about 200 trees.
“MIAL has sought permission to be allowed to prune 198 trees,” said C B Rokade, Deputy Municipal Commissioner. “A few weeks back, we had given them permission to prune eight trees,” said Rokade.
A recent survey by MIAL found over 200 trees over the prescribed height/obstruction limit. The last such survey was in 2003 by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), said a MIAL spokesperson. “The trees across the approach path of runways might obstruct landing aircraft…,” said the spokesperson.
At one end of the 27/09 runway is the Jari Mari slums while at the other end is the Milan Subway off the Western Express Highway. One end of the other runway 14 / 32, is towards Vile Parle-Juhu. The airport has specified permissible limits for construction, trees and hoardings near the runway. The prescribed height of a tree is ideally 2 per cent of its distance from the beginning of the runway, said the spokesperson. This means, if a tree is 200 metres from the beginning of the runway it should not be higher than 4 metres.