Mopa, ahoy !
Valmiki Faleiro
 

A recent column by my esteemed and respected senior friend, Chandrakant Keni, inspires this revisit to the Goa International Airport issue. Permit me to start in a roundabout way:

Why is it that Goans from every caste, creed and colour – from medicos like Dr. Vithal Shirodkar and Dr. Ernest Borges, from corporate honchos like Victor Menezes and Sumont Mulgaonkar, from legal luminaries like *Queen’s Counsel* Barrister Nazareth in Kenya and fellow Margaoite Adhik Shirodkar in Mumbai, to the Lata Mangueshkars and the Frank Moraes’ (the list could go on, ad infinitum) – competed, and excelled, in their fields of endeavour, outside their native Goa?

And why is it that Goans in Goa – like restaurateurs in Margao who complain against much-disadvantaged streetcorner food pushcarts, or merchants in Mapusa who are vociferous against “Garment Sale” of factory seconds – fight so shy of competition?

Me thinks it is for the very same reason/s why a skilled Goan workman, in Goa, would stand no sliver of hope competing – on home turf – with a similarly skilled migrant from Kerala, Karnataka or Andhra.

Which is the crux of my misgivings about an additional airport (assuming, without admitting, that another is needed) being located at Mopa, the threshold of Maharashtra. Can an over-priced and over-loaded Goa ever hope to compete with virgin south coastal Maharashtra, once Mopa unveils the virgin to the eyes of the lusty tourist world?

I refuse to bite the arguments that Mopa versus Dabolim is a North Goa v/s South Goa issue, or that Mopa will affect tourism only in South Goa. Balderdash!

Mopa will, in due course and time, affect tourism in ALL of Goa – and hit ONLY the small and marginal Goan segment that counts on tourism for its survival : taxi operators, small lodges and guest room hirers, beach shack operators and the small restaurateurs, dotting the various beaches of Goa. From Arambol to Galgibaga.

The cash-rich Starred hoteliers now in Goa have the means to easily move over to the pristine beaches of south Maharashtra – they may even be more than pleased to. Humble and hard-working coastal Maharashtrians don’t have as many village feasts and zatras, or dozens of in-laws kissing the Creator every other day, as happens in Goa. Work absenteeism is a bane to anyone doing business in Goa.

Multi- and national tour, travel and ticketing agencies, car rentals and forex exchangers will likewise be only glad to move over to an emerging xanadu.

Would it be only the rich and powerful who may shift shop from Goa? Lamanis from Karnataka, ayurvedic body masseurs from Kerala, even the sprinkling of firangi restaurateurs and small businessman … what would be their incentive to stay back, when the tide is flowing up North?

Our neighbours from Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri (even Raigarh) districts possess not just excellent beaches waiting to be opened. They bear, pertinently, a mindset that will not oppose the setting up of international-standard Golf courses, nightspots, Casinos, and what-have-you, on their soil.

If you are inclined to think that only affluent tourists may skip Goa for Maharashtra’s Konkan paradise, while we still will enjoy overloaded Charter carreiras with butchers from England, dopeys from Israel and the mafiosi from Russia, think again. Have Maharashtrians ever displayed aversion to Full moon parties, Raves, Flea and Saturday night markets? And can our Ghode Modni hope to compete with their sensuous Lavni?

Goa will simply not be in a position, on any yardstick, to compete with south coastal Maharashtra, once Mopa helps open it.

So finally, who will be left back in Goa? Only the small-time Goan lodger, the Goan cabbie, the Goan beach shacker and the Goan coastal restaurateur who depended almost entirely on tourist clientele … nursing wounds of indescribable loss, and fending off bank recoveries.

And what about this entirely wholesome and unadulterated illogic of locating a vital *public utility* at one extreme, desolate, end of Goa – furthest from the maximum who will use it? By extension, when Panjim’s bus stand gets saturated beyond hope of expansion – Panjim has no land for its garbage even now – will its new bus stand be built at Keri-Ponda or Canacona, where plenty of suitable land is available … with a six-laned shuttle for Ponnjekars?

Seriously, what is so wrong, or beyond redemption, with Dabolim? Why even think of a second international airport for minuscule Goa? Are we already so close to being the Singapore or HongKong (where flights take off or land every few minutes) that some Chief Minister promised to turn Goa into?

Without getting into legalese or merits, let’s accept the Navy at Dabolim as fait accompli. Let us accept that the Navy has, down the years, invested in huge infrastructure, which cannot be dismantled piece by piece and shifted to Project Seabird at Karwar. Let’s accept that Naval presence must continue at Dabolim – and why crib about yielding a little acreage when an entire island, Anjediva, could just like that be gifted to the Navy without public debate?

And to the most pertinent questions:

Who says the Navy cannot continue to operate from a reconfigured Dabolim International Airport, under complete civilian control? Are not two of our nation’s busiest civilian airports also used by the defence services? Why can’t a naval enclave be accommodated at one end of a redesigned Dabolim under civilian control?

Who says there’s not enough of land within the existing Dabolim perimeters, to carve out a naval enclave and simultaneously have ALL the runways and infrastructure being planned at Mopa? Finally, who says it will cost more to do all that at Dabolim than to build from scratch at Mopa?

On that note, I rest my case

submitted to TGF by the author on Nov 30, 2005

[Valmiki Faleiro is a Margao based businessman who earlier worked as Staff Reporter for the erstwhile WEST COAST TIMES and later as Goa Correspondent with Mumbai's FREE PRESS JOURNAL Group, and the INDIAN EXPRESS newspaper.  He served as the President of the  Margao Municipality from 1985 to 1987. He has indicated that he hopes to return soon to full-time writing, with a special interest on certain aspects of Goan history.] 

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