Authorities now plan to conduct a fresh survey in the area on Monday.

Official sources said the joint survey to earmark the illegal constructions will be carried out by GMADA, Chandigarh Municipal Corporation, Zirakpur Municipal Council and IAF officials.

After the IAF raised the issue of illegal constructions near its base before the Punjab and Haryana high court, GMADA on August 3 had served a seven-day notice to the encroachers in Pabhat, Kailana and Jagatpura villages, located near the airbase, for evacuating the earmarked area or face a demolition drive.

While Jagatpura comes under GMADA’s jurisdiction, the other two come under the municipal limits of Zirakpur and Chandigarh. However, occupants of these structures claim their buildings do not fall under the prohibited 100m ban area. As such, despite deadline of the notices getting over, no demolition drive was held.

Some of the illegal structures house butcheries, inviting scavenging birds, which pose threat to flights operating from the Chandigarh International Airport here, the IAF had stated before the high court.

GMADA officials said these illegal constructions in the form of cattle sheds, shacks, etc., had come up in the past one year in the otherwise “banned for construction” area in the periphery of the IAF base.

Further GMADA is also trying to zero in on the actual owners of these shacks, and has so far found five such people from land revenue records.

This is not the first time that the encroachers were served notices. Encroachers in the past returned after evacuation drives. But this time, GMADA had warned them of a demolition drive.

Air Force officials have been reiterating that apart from being a security threat, these structures block the road for safety vehicles, and in case of an accident, safety vehicle will be forced to follow a longer route, making the rescue difficult or near impossible.