"On 3rd August 2010, one of the two radars installed at IGI airport was unserviceable for about 4 hours due to cut in the optical fibre cable link," Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. "However, operations were not affected since the second radar was working," he added.
Patel said that instances of radar failures were reported the most at the Ahmedabad airport, five times, in the two months, while the Mumbai airport had 3 such cases.
"There was no flight disruption due to failure of radar at other airports," he added.
Airports like Hyderabad, Trivendrum, Guwahati and Behrampur ACS reported 2 such incidents each, Patel said, adding that Varanasi airport had one radar failure in July-August this year.
Replying to a separate question, Patel said that government has no plans of giving incentives to private airlines for starting services on short distance routes."No incentive package is under consideration with the government at present for private airlines to start air services on Short-haul routes," he said.
Patel added that it is up to the airlines to provide air services to specific places depending upon the traffic demand and viability of the routes.In yet another reply, the minister said the government has provided an indirect subsidy of over Rs 2,061 crore for performing Haj yatra between 2007 and 2009.
He also said that on April 25, 2010, an Emirates aircraft from Dubai to Kochi encountered turbulences over the Arabian Sea, and added that "the reasons shall be known after completion of the investigation.