Bird hits at the city airport sent the Rajya Sabha in a flutter on Tuesday when Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said there has been an increase in the number of accidents caused by bird hits to civilian aircraft near airports, particularly IGI, in the past few months.

“While there have been 251 cases of bird hits reported in 2008, against 217 in 2007, in Delhi the number of bird hit incidents reported this year is 39, as against 30 last year,” Patel told the Rajya Sabha.

The minister was responding to a question raised by Prof Alka Balram Kshatriya and Shobhana Bhartiya.

Patel said the source of bird attraction at the Delhi airport are the major construction activities in and around aerodrome, the grass inside the airport, land-fill areas, water stagnation, slum clusters, garbage dump, and illegal abattoirs near the airport.

“Airfield environment management committees have been constituted at airports where scheduled flights operate to identify the sources of bird attraction and take remedial steps for prevention of such incidents,” Patel said.