Redo Dabolim, Undo Mopa!

Valmiki Faleiro
 

 We recently examined the whys & wherefores that an airport at Mopa, on Maharashtra’s doorstep, will spell economic ruin for aam Goenkars. Irrespective of whether Mopa will be an alternate, or can be in addition, to Dabolim.

Plain persuasion, in elementary English, seems to impress neither our rulers nor the ruling party. Or does it?

In a transparent bid to mollify the pro-Dabolim sentiment, Chief Minister Pratapsing Rane and Industries Minister Luizinho Faleiro now declare that Dabolim “will” (Rane) and “must” (Luizinho) continue. But with an important rider: Mopa “can” also go ahead! The official line adopted by their party is equally bizarre, even if reflective of the hidden agenda:

“Dabolim will stay, but no way can Mopa can go, either!” the ruling Congress seems to ruse.

Our politicos are doing what they seem best at: pulling wool over people’s eyes. The latest is this brilliant tale that Goa can have two international airports: the old Dabolim and a swanky, sexy and futuristic Mopa.

A crass lie. There simply is no way Dabolim can stay if Mopa comes, except one: as an exclusive Naval Aerodrome! No state in the country has been allowed more than one international airport. Geographical and economic goliaths like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra have one each. Can minuscule Goa conceivably be allowed two – at an approximate distance of thirty miles from each other as the bird flies? Ha!

Let’s get this upfront, folks: if Mopa comes, Dabolim goes as an international air terminal. And there’s no way Rane and Luizinho can prevent that from happening – whether they still are in power or out of it – for the plain reason that civil aviation lies not in the competence of the Goa government. It is not in the Concurrent List, either!

For argument’s sake, let us conjure some fertile reason why Goa can be made into an exception and allowed two international airports, as Rane and Luizinho will have us believe. Let’s imagine that Sonia Gandhi’s future daughter-in-law will come from Goa. Or that Manmohan Singh falls head over heels for a Goan country belle. Or even, for sake of his long-standing love for the Goan holiday, that Sharad Pawar gives up on his dreams on the beachland of south coastal Maharashtra. Ha, again! Let’s now stop dreaming and revert to life’s harsh realities.

Just suppose Goa does have two in’tl airports. Does it solve the problem? NO (in bold caps!) Because the day Mopa arrives, Goa’s problems begin – irrespective of the fate of Dabolim. That’s precisely the point I was trying to drive home in my last take (HERALD, Nov. 20.) Whatever one does with Dabolim – retain it, hack it, chase the Navy out or herd the Navy in – the moment Mopa flies, Goa sinks.

There is, in fact, ONLY 1 way to save Goa’s stake in tourism (at least in the medium term) and, in the bargain, turn the centrally located Dabolim into a modern air hub: ensure that Mopa will not happen.

Pertinently, it is here that the current government in Goa is advantageously placed to stop Mopa, now. State and Centre have the same political party in power. Both Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister bear a soft corner for Goa and will intervene. But someone needs to ask. The Centre did not propose Mopa, the Goa government did.

Moreover, what effort will it take to convince the Centre that Dabolim is infinitely better with a redo, and at a far lesser cost, than building from scratch at a fatuous new locale? What effort will it take to point out that when defence aviation can co-exist in Mumbai and Delhi, why can’t it in Goa, with her tiny fraction of civilian flight volumes?

Let us put the proposition in terminology that Goan politicos are in better familiarity with: Conversions. What the Ranes and Luizinhos require to do is to impress upon the Centre the need to “convert” Dabolim…

To convert Dabolim from the present Naval Air Station with a civil enclave, to a Civilian Airport with a naval enclave – a modernized version of the present one, at much cheaper conversion fees to boot!

But what if, just if, having done that, the Goa government finds that wheels bigger than its own, grind the axe in Delhi? The answer is simple: we are a state and Land Acquisition is as entirely a State subject, as Civil Aviation is the Centre’s. The Goa Government has the means and the ways to allow the Mopa Land Acquisition proceedings to lapse. Where will the Civil Aviation Ministry build the airport if the State provides no land to build another?

Which brings me to the big Q: do we see any signs of such Political Will in the current scenario of Goa? Do we see a Bhausaheb Bandodkar or a Dr. Jack de Sequeira out there on the horizon?

submitted to TGF by the author on Dec 3, 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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