Dabolim MLA and Panchayats Minister Mauvin Godinho set the cat among the pigeons when he claimed that GMR Infra Ltd, the private player of the Goa government-owned Manohar International Airport at Mopa, was lobbying the Union government for a closure of the Dabolim Airport, and was pressuring the Indian Navy to seek full control of the airfield that today serves both as a Navy airbase and a civilian airport with the terminal managed and operated by the Airports Authority of India.
It is unclear what truth lies in Mauvin’s remarks, and as such, GMR has yet to issue a statement either confirming or denying the claims, despite a whole 24 hours having passed since a minister in government made damning allegations of professional impropriety and unethical business practices against them. At the same time, however, South Goa MP Capt Viriato Fernandes, in comments made on Thursday, said that he had “confidential information” that there were plans afoot to make Dabolim a fully military airport, while Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai said that the decision was taken “post Operation Sindoor.”
Now, Godinho claims that, in meeting Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, he successfully thwarted the Union government’s plans and that it was his intervention that saved the airport. Having first made the comments which re-ignited the issue, Godinho’s clarificatory comments are hardly convincing. If, as the BJP government, both at the Centre and the state, have been repeatedly insisting, that Dabolim will continue as a civilian airport in the foreseeable future, then GMR’s alleged lobbying and pressurising should be of no consequence. If, as Godinho seems to suggest, the assurances given that civilian operations at Dabolim will continue are susceptible to lobbying and pressuring, then can they be called assurances at all?
On one hand, the Government of India has spent significant funds and is currently in the process of expanding the civilian terminal at Dabolim airport and nearly doubling its capacity with the expanded terminal set to be inaugurated in October this year ahead of the tourist season, and those who have assured us that Dabolim will continue have always pointed to these continued investments in Dabolim to buttress their case.
But on the other hand, the State government has a long history of making promises, some of which have never been kept. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant assured the Goa Legislative Assembly that no flights would be allowed to shift operations from Dabolim to Mopa. Since then, Oman Airways, Qatar Airways, and several Russian charter airliners have shifted to Mopa without even a semblance of a protest from the Goa government. The BJP also promised that the casinos would be removed from the River Mandovi, that Goa would be given special status, and that women would be given three free gas cylinders, none of which materialised.
The people of Goa, in general and of South Goa in particular, are right to be apprehensive that such plans are truly afoot. It is no secret that air traffic to and from Goa hasn’t massively increased after the inauguration of the second airport that was built at a huge cost -- not just financial, but also social and ecological. Both the government and GMR must immediately clarify the issue via official statements and not leave the people of Goa hanging with political potshots, innuendos and statements that they themselves know aren’t true.
