Team Herald
DABOLIM: The plane crash on Thursday at Ghatkopar, the congested central suburbs of Mumbai, just 4 nautical miles from the airport, should be a wakeup call for the Goa government which has avoided monitoring unauthorised construction within the Obstacle Limitation Surface area popularly known as the Funnel Zone.
The Funnel zone is a controlled airspace around an airport where high rise buildings are banned for safety of the aircraft. These areas are regulated under the Height Restrictions for Safeguarding of Aircraft Operations Rules, 2015. However, ever since Mormugao Planning and Development Authority has taken cognisance of only a part of the funnel zone in the Outline Development Plan 2026, there has been a disturbing trend of mushrooming of numerous structures, most of them illegal.
“People have been taking advantage of a depression in the plateau while approaching the runway from eastward side to circumvent the rules and are building structures there”, says Cmd. Sanjoy Gupta, a retired aviator from Indian Navy. Cmd Gupta and many retired aviation experts from Indian Navy and Civilian establishments have been noticing with alarm the rise in unwanted structures that obstruct the smooth landing of aircraft at Dabolim Airport from landward side.
Construction licence for any structure can be granted only after obtaining an NOC from the Navy. However, citizens claim that the Panchayats which fall within the funnel zone of the Dabolim Airport, as well as the PDA are not preventing any unauthorised structures from mushrooming in this zone. “Looking at the haphazard development in the path of aircraft landing path, technically known as a funnel zone, vis a vis the Vasco ODP2011 and ODP-2026, it is very clear that due to lack of coordination between the Planning Authority and the Naval Authorities there is a total ambiguity as to the jurisdiction and limits of the funnel zone as prescribed Ministry of Civil Aviation notification and Aircraft Act 1934 regarding the permissible height of structures in funnel zone”, says Edwin Mascarenhas, a Chicalim based activist who is fighting to make the region’s ODP comply with statutory needs. Mascarenhas believes that this lack of sync between Naval authorities and MPDA has resulted in non implementation of the rules by licensing authorities affecting aviation safety.
While Navy has been seized with concerns of the violation of the funnel zone, the lack of concern of MPDA and State authorities is visible in the way ODP 2026 is allowing more structures to concern. In April 2017, Mumbai High Court had ordered the demolition of 110 buildings and structures that violate height norms and create obstacles around the approach area of the Mumbai International Airport saying there was no point in “feeling bad for the developers of these structures or the residents staying in these structures” and that the authorities “could not sit and wait for an accident to take place”. A similar petition has been filed before the High Court at Panjim by Dabolim based Alexander Micheal against the several unauthorised structures within the Dabolim Airport funnel zone, including a G+7 floor building.
In Mopa, the regional plan around the airport does not show a funnel zone despite it having received DGCA approval. In future even Mopa like Dabolim shall have many structures permitted by the panchayat but unauthorised and illegal under the Height Restriction Rules.
