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Folks, a number of posts have appeared in response to Philip Thomas, about dabolim airport. Some goans living abroad have taken great pains to create an impression that the Indian Navy is causing considerable hinderance to commercial flights. They have gone so far as to call the Navy an usurper of Goan territory. This, it seems, is standard practice for this small handfull of bitter Goans, who, after over 40 years, cannot come to terms that we in Goa are an integral part of India., and the Indian armed forces function for the sole purpose of defence of the motherland. In short, the armed forces are a part of us, and are not interlopers or outsiders. This indelible fact is not open to discussion and I have no intention of berrating this point any further.. Dabolim has strategic, national importance, by virtue of its location. Its airfield can launch patrol aircraft to search and monitor the entire Indian ocean space from the gulf of Hormuz to south Africa. The airfield can be used to provide defensive and offensive fighter aircraft against all types of seaborne and air threats to our installations and cities on the west coast. It was for this reason that the Navy built up extensive infrastructure at great cost to the nation, over the years. The Navy operates 7 Air squadrons from here. Most of them are frontline operational squadrons, but jet training is also carried out to some extent. The Harriers are based here, but fly off to the aircraft carrier when she is at sea. The runaway can take all types of commercial aircraft including 747s. However the parking slots have a severe limitation, and the terminal which is controlled by the Airports Authority of India is not geared to sustain heavy commercial traffic. The Navy controls the ATC and does a good job of it. the Navy could move out, but in my opinion, it would take a number of years to make a phased withdrawal, provided there was a viable alternative. . The Navy has offered night operations for commercial use, but there are no takers. For 5 days of the week, the landing slots from 1830 to 2230 hours have been offered to all Indian operators. There are no takers and fights continue to be bunched up in the afternoons. Foreign charters have been told that they can land early in the morning from 0430 onwards. There are no takers. One wonders why this is so, when most foreign operators land and take off at night from other Indian airports. It would therefore appear that there is no crisis in the short term for commercial flights operating from Dabolim. All that is required is to sensibly dovetail our commercial interests with our National interests. Now for Seabird. This giant Naval base at Karwar was conceptualised in 1988. The main purpose was to decongest the Bombay naval base, and get the our western fleet out of Paki air strike range. The project did not get funding for many years, but a truncated naval base was sanctioned eventually, and phase 1 will be ready sometime next year. This includes a deep water harbour and berths for naval units, besides a very modern ship repair facility. The small Naval Air station which was on the drawing board, has not yet been sanctioned by the Govt, and I cannot see it coming into operation for another 7-10 years. Due to the topography of the region, the runaway was never designed to operate large aircraft. In short, it can never replace the existing naval facility at Dabolim. I must confess that the Mopa project does not make any economic sense to anyone except the Maharashtrian and Goan politicians and vested interests who have been buying land in that area in anticipation of a windfall. It will never serve the interests of Goans from Ilhas, Salcette, or south Goa, and should be resisted most strongly by the opposition parties in the legislature. The problem with this project will definitely be funding, because the present central Govt. policy envisages private and public sector partnership in large infrastructure projects. Unlike kerala, where the NRIs dug into their pockets to pay for the Cochin airport, for their own ultimate benefit, I just cant see Goan private enterprise sinking money into this white elephant. It remains to be seen whether this project will ever see the light of day. regards, Gilbert Menezes.