Jay Panda’s chopper seized for flying over Odisha’s Chilika lake, former MP says ‘they can’t stop me’
Baijayant Jay Panda, who quit the BJD in May, said the charge was a brazen attempt to stop him from moving around. The Chilika lake is an eco-sensitive zone with a no-flying restriction.
Former BJD parliamentarian Baijayant Jay Panda’s chopper was seized by the Odisha police on Monday over allegations that it flew over Chilika Lake, a ‘No Flying Eco Sensitive Zone’. An FIR was also lodged against Panda, who denied the charges and described the move as “brazen attempt” by the state government to stop him from moving around.
Panda, who was suspended for “anti-party activities” in May this year, said: “The FIR talks of people seeing the chopper at 1.30 pm. But I had landed at Bhubaneswar airport at 1.30 pm after flying the chopper from Kendrapara. It seems the government is picking up random reports and twisting it. The cops who had come to seize the chopper told my staff that they were under pressure,” said Panda, who quit the BJD in May this year alleging that he was being targeted.
The police in Puri have also seized the hangar of the chopper’s owner IMFA, the company founded by Jay Panda’s father.
The FIR was lodged by assistant Conservator of Forests of the CDA, Binod Acharya at Marine Police Station in Arakhkuda. Though the FIR did not name Panda, Puri SP Sarthak Sarangi said they had inquired from the Airport Authority of India that the former MP had indeed flown from the Bhubaneswar hangar to Kendrapara along with two other persons on September 15.
“As the AAI authorities did not give us the latitudinal and longitudinal positions of the chopper during Sept 15 flight without the approval of DGCA, we sealed the hangar. We would wait for details of the flight from DGCA before taking further action,” Sarangi told HT.
The FIR alleged that a “white-coloured chopper” was spotted at about 1.30 pm on September 15 flying over Chilika Lake area making huge sound and attempted to land in in Arakhkuda and nearby villages. The FIR came a day after an Odia daily reported about seaplane landing on Chilika water that created panic among the locals. The CDA official, however, in his FIR mentioned the aircraft as “chopper”.
Earlier this month, the Airports Authority of India had dropped the proposal to introduce seaplane facility in the lake after officials in charge of conservation of Chilika advised it citing ecological concerns. Terming it legally infeasible and its costs outweighing its benefits, the AAI had announced plans of starting water aerodromes and amphibious aircraft operation in Chilika lake and Sabarmati river of Gujarat.
Chilika Development Authority, the official agency in charge of the lake, had written to the State government stressing that the legal provisions under Wetland Conservation and Managent Rules, 2017 prohibited converting it for no-wetland uses. Chilila lake is a designated wetland site of international importance under the Ramsar Convention.
Nanda said the lake yields around 14,000 tonnes of fish every year providing livelihood to 2 lakh fishermen of 158 primary fishing cooperative societies. The sound and vibration during take-off and landing is likely to adversely affect the breeding of the prized M Cephalus prawn.
The CDA officials said Irrawady Dolphins in the lake are highly sensitive to sound and their breeding may suffer due to high decibel sound due to the seaplanes. They also cautioned against the seaplane service citing the presence of one million birds congregating in the lake causing bird hazards for the operation of the sea planes.
