One such person is Prumal Nadar, a man in his mid-forties, who is amongst the 17-odd workers whose job profile is to keep the airport's runway safe by catching the dogs entering the airport.
There are scores of people who work day and night at the city airport to ease your journey. Some of these workers, though, remain anonymous. A handful of people outside of the airport know about their existence and how they work to keep the passengers and flights safe.
One such person is Prumal Nadar, a man in his mid-forties, who is amongst the 17-odd workers whose job profile is to keep the airport's runway safe by catching the dogs entering the airport. Hailing from a lower-middle-class family background, Nadar and his colleagues have been well-trained in the art of dog catching by dog experts and civic authorities.
After not being able to get a stable job for the most part of his adult life, Nadar, who is barely literate, joined the city's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (CSIA) as dog catcher since 2008. "When I joined, we used to catch around 100 dogs every week. But since then there has been a gradual decrease. At present, not more than two dogs a week get caught entering the airport boundary," he said.
According to the airport authorities, the stray dogs are in abundance due to slums surrounding the airport. The butchers' and chicken shops and piled garbage attract the stray dogs. But the fortification of the boundary walls, and the increase in their height, as well as electrification of the walls, has helped in containing the problem to a great extent, insist airport officials.
The dog catchers, as they are normally called in the civil aviation industry, work three shifts around the day, fanning out to different corners of the airport at the start of their shifts.
"Once a dog is caught, we take it to a kennel built inside the airport premises and alert the civic authorities about it. Until the civic authorities take it off our hands, we feed the dogs well with chicken, milk, biscuits and other stuff to their liking," Nadar said proudly.
The ongoing monsoon brings with it some problems for the dog catchers, because the incidences of dogs straying into the airport increase during this season.
On careful observation, these dog catchers have found two spots from where it is getting easy for the strays to sneak in. One is near the Air India hangar located near the Kalina side of the airport. The other spot is near the Shradhanad nullah, from inside which filter rods have been removed in order to avoid water logging. "The removal of these filter rods makes it easier for these dogs to come in," added Nadar.
Though breach of airport boundary walls by other animals is not common at CSIA, it is very common at other, smaller airports across the country. At Surat airport in November last year, a Spicejet flight carrying 146 passengers and crew members was severely damaged when a buffalo came in its way as the flight was preparing to take off to Delhi.
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