A second airport in Central Goa!
Valmiki Faleiro
 

One can’t help stop people wearing blinkers.  Some say that opposition to Mopa is all about scuttling development that will stand Goa in good stead in future.  Someone dubbed it as chivalry!

 Nothing could be further from reality.  Anti-Mopa does not equate to anti-development.  In fact, the diametric opposite does.  Anti-Mopa actually translates to saving Goa’s interests from being pawned in favour of south coastal Maharashtra.  Nobody is against Goa’s development or bright future, or even, IF NECESSARY, a 2^nd airport – the precise reason why every sensible Goan must say “No!” to Mopa, at Mopa, maybe “Yes” if located elsewhere.

 What is being opposed are the foolhardy twin decisions: 1) of building a 2^nd airport elsewhere, when Dabolim has all requisites to being developed into a top-of-the-line international airport, at a substantially lower cost – without having to dislodge the Navy, but with a rational use of the huge land available within Dabolim’s existing perimeters; and, 2) of locating this 2^nd airport at one extreme end of Goa, furthest away from the maximum who will use it. 

 Goa’s ruling party and government, which led a delegation on Dabolim to Delhi, seem to have entirely missed these moot points.  That the future of Dabolim’s civilian enclave is secondary to building an airport to the entire advantage of Maharashtra, and to the grave detriment of Goa, by locating it at Mopa.  That the very location of the proposed 2^nd airport is central to this controversy. 

 The issue at stake is not whether Dabolim will continue for civilian flights.  Or whether Dabolim will or can be expanded and developed into a modern airport on the lines of what is planned at Mopa.  Or whether the Navy will continue at Dabolim or shift elsewhere; or even whether Dabolim has enough land for the co-existence of a modern civilian airport and the Indian Naval Air Station, cheek by jowl. 

 The issue is not even whether it is desirable, much less viable, to have a second airport in minuscule Goa.  Or its economic feasibility which, as projected in the Final Mopa Feasibility Report, starts off as a white elephant, entirely dependent on public funding (read that as the taxes we pay) for at least 30 years after its commissioning!

 The issue, simply put, is the LOCATION of the proposed facility.  A prominent pro-Mopa lobbyist has already admitted that Maharashtra will be content with an airport at Mopa but if Goans scuttle Mopa, then Maharashtra will demand an airport at Sindhudurg (which of course it cannot under the rules – the closest to Goa an airport can be built will not imperil Goa’s economic interests: in south Raigarh/north Ratnagiri districts.  Which was the precise location recommended by the expert Committee appointed to decongest Mumbai airport – out of which, rather quixotically, the Mopa idea sprouted.)

 Let us, for argument’s sake, borrow the case of the Mopa proponents.  That Dabolim CANNOT be expanded any further.  That Goa NEEDS a 2^nd airport ten years down the line.  And that such a 2^nd airport IS financially feasible.

 Granted.  Let’s build a 2^nd (Greenfield or regular) airport in Goa.  But WHY  locate it at one extreme end of Goa?  Will anyone come up with specific reason/s that the location is best suited to Goa’s interests?  Just tell us what justifies locating the facility at Maharashtra’s doorstep.

 The anti-Mopa sentiment is definitely not against the development of Goa.  This is a hollow charge designed to deflect from real issues.  I, therefore, dare say:

 If Mopa is viable and is seen as for the good of Goa, shift it to Ponda, Shiroda, Madkai … any location in central Goa.  No sane Goan will object to that.  Because the crux of Mopa is its LOCATION, designed, as it is, to benefit a neighbouring State at the cost of Goa’s interests.

 Unless, of course, we continue looking at the issue, as Sir Winston Churchill once inimitably told his parliamentary Opposition Leader, “from the wrong end of the municipal drainpipe!”  For 30 pieces of silver

submitted to TGF by the author on Dec 15, 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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