MARGAO
The Goans for Dabolim Only (GFDO) on Tuesday has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ensure that the foundation stone for the Mopa international airport is not laid prematurely before the logical end to the judicial process.
GFDO convenor Fr Eremito Rebelo told the media that the NGO has dispatched a letter to the Prime Minister, drawing his attention to the Goa government’s decision to rush with the airport when cases are pending before the National Green Tribunal. “GFDO has drawn attention of the PM that no scientific studies have been carried out with respect to the serious ramifications on the ecology and environment of such a project. The Goa State Biodiversity Board itself has submitted that it has not carried out any study on the Mopa plateau,” Fr
Rebelo said.
On the government decision to lay the foundation stone at the hands of PM from Dona Paula, Fr Rebelo told the PM in the letter that the strange choice of the venue of the foundation stone laying ceremony over 30 kms from the actual site of the project is to conceal from him the fact that the Mopa plateau abuts the Western Ghats and is a biodiversity hotspot. “We are sure that the PM will agree that this is no manner in which a project of this magnitude with potentially irreversible consequences for the land, its people and its economy should be set up,” he added.
Fr Rebelo said that GFDO has also brought to the notice of the PM via the letter that there have also been many doubts raised about the legality of the land acquisition process itself for this project which the State government has refused to address.
The letter to the PM pointed out that the contentious Mopa airport policy was one of the main reasons that the Congress government was voted out and the BJP party ushered into the seat of governance with a clear majority in Goa. “Therefore, the State BJP government’s iron willed determination to plough ahead with even greater tenacity than that displayed by the erstwhile Congress government in imposing the destructive Mopa airport policy formulated by it, comes as a rude shock and bitter blow to the people of Goa,” GFDO’s letter to the Prime
Minister stated.
