PANAJI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for the Rs 2,000 crore Mopa airport at a crowded event held at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium at Bambolim on Sunday.
The Prime Minister who flew into the State at around 10.30 am despite having arrived from Japan only the previous night pressed a button to digitally unveil a soft copy of the plaque of the foundation stone.
“How many governments before this have promised to build the airport? Have any of them delivered on it? With this airport tourism for the state will grow and the nation’s tourism will be strengthened,” Modi said.
“Goa will be the power station for the rest of India,” he said.
Besides the airport, the Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone for the Tuem Electronic Manufacturing cluster as well as inaugurating phase 3A of the Goa Shipyard Limited which will be used for the building of all the 22 mine counter measure vessels at Vasco da Gama.
Speaking about the airport Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju Pusapati said that the airport was the need of the hour given that the aviation sector in the country was growing at a rate of 20% which is unmatched by even the large economies.
“Today we are the ninth largest aviation market. We will be the third largest by 2022,” he said.
Union defence Minister Manohar Parrikar too spoke of the growth in the aviation sector that Goa has seen saying that not just Mopa, Dabolim too will have to be kept in operation to deal with the load.
“Dabolim was built with a capacity of 2.7 million passengers per year. Today it is handling five million passengers per year which is nearly double and there is no scope to expand it. Dabolim will have to be kept operational, so you need not worry about it,” Parrikar said.
The government has also promised that connectivity between the North and South of Goa will be enhanced with the new Mandovi and Zuari bridges just part of wider infrastructure build ups in the State.
Besides the airport, the Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone for the Tuem Electronic Manufacturing Cluster with an expected revenue generation of around Rs 12,000 crore annually is expected to be the single largest electronics manufacturing estate on the west coast of India.
For his part Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar was full of praise for the central government for enhancing Goa’s ‘global profile’ through granting of events like that of BRICS summit, the DefExpo as well as infrastructure investments to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore in the form of highway expansion and taking forward projects that were long awaited.
“Goa’s pride has risen because of all what the central government has done for us,” Parsekar said.
