NEW DELHI: Around 100 chicken and mutton shop owners have sent applications seeking permission of Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to continue running their businesses within Mumbai airport’s 10-km radius. This is the first time that the regulator has got such requests and it is now trying to figure out what to do with them. The Aircraft Act’s Rule 91 says that no slaughtering should be allowed within 10-km radius of an aerodrome reference point to avoid attracting birds that could risk approaching aircraft. The Mumbai airport had some years ago filed a case against BMC for permitting chicken and mutton shops around the airport citing this rule. The Mumbai HC had then asked BMC to take action against these businesses. “Since a DGCA rule was cited for action against these shops, the Delhi office of the aviation Delhi’s Ghazipur slaughterhouse and allowing big compost pits for turning garbage into natural manure. “But in these cases too we have made it clear that some local agency will take responsibility that these places will be run in a way that they do not attract birds and pose a hazard to aircraft. In Mumbai meat shop owners’ case too, we will have to say that. The airport operator will have to monitor them,” the official said. A Mumbai airport official confirmed that many meat shops run close to the airport and that they have complained to the DGCA and filed a case against BMC. Sources say the meat shops are mostly located in a slum area around the airport. regulator has got about 100 applications from chicken and meat shop owners in Mumbai,” said a DGCA official. “Their shops are within the 10-km radius and they want our permission to continue running them. They need to renew their licences in the next month or so and have started approaching us directly.” Over 300 meat shops are believed to exist close to the Mumbai airport, which rates high on list of airports vulnerable to bird hits and animal incursions. The DGCA is in a fix as it has neither given such permissions nor has ever got such requests from meat shop owners. The closest it has come to anything like this was giving permission for a big garbage dump near