the goan I network
PANAJI
The Goans for Dabolim Only group that has been protesting the government’s moves to build another airport at Mopa has questioned the purpose of Union Minister Suresh Prabhu’s visit to the Mopa airport site especially since, according to them, the Union Government and the ministry “have no involvement whatsoever in the proposed Mopa airport.”
“The project has been sparked off and set in motion by the Goa State government through an agreement signed by it with the project developer -- GMR. It is, therefore, perplexing why the Union Civil Aviation Minister should feel the need to make Mopa airport ‘a blueprint of Goa’s all-round development’ and make it responsible for the growth of the state in various sectors,” convener of the Goans for Dabolim Only Fr Eremito Rebello said.
He said that the government was pushing forward this unviable airport against the interests of the government-run Dabolim airport.
“Surely the Union Aviation Ministry is aware that expert reports have clearly opined that two airports are economically unviable given Goa’s present and future air traffic projections,” Fr Rebello said.
The GFDO has said that if the government genuinely believes that traffic will be enough to sustain both airports, they should make the figures of their projections public especially since the figures that they have “paints a totally different narrative.”
GFDO also questioned the Union Minister’s claims that he would make Mopa into a cargo hub pointing to GMR’s Masterplan which itself states that “current cargo operators stated that they are satisfied with the cargo facilities at Dabolim airport, except for customs which is located at Panaji and have no desire to move.”
“Most of your plans appear to be built on a shaky foundation. You speak of transporting local produce of Goan farmers to international markets even as the state government is urbanizing Goa and concretizing the fields at breakneck speed and Goa itself is presently in the situation of having to import farm produce from neighbouring states,” the GFDO has said in a letter addressed to the Union Minister.
Fr Rebello also questioned the claim that the new airport will offer jobs to Goans saying that just how private companies in Goa were attending recruitment fairs in neighbouring Sawantwadi, the same would happen with the Mopa Airport as well.
They pointed out that as Union Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhu spoke of grand plans to improve rail safety and customer services but ironically his tenure as Railway Minister was a period of 238 consequential train accidents and 193 deaths resulting from derailments alone which were the highest number of deaths from such a cause over the last
17 years.
