<There is one way to check out whether the proposed Mopa airport will benefit Goa and Goans and that is through a cost- benefit analysis taking all costs into account including environmental costs .The 1000 crores could be better spent >[Eric Pinto]
Cost-benefit analysis and environmental impact assessment are not new. Presumably they shaped the thinking aout Mopa at least minimally ever since the latter was identified as a suitable airport nearly 10 years ago. One possibility is that thinking has not evolved since then to reflect changing conditions and parameters have remained frozen. This may be due to either chronic political instability in Goa or a tendency to be ruled by autrocrats -- or (perish the thought) a slowness among the citizenry to grasp the underlying complexities. But the most recent exercise was reportedly carried out by ICAO of Montreal in conjunction with ADPI of Paris just a few months ago. And they have weirdly gone to the extent of proposing a two-runway A380 airport at Mopa at a cost of over Rs 1000 crores practically in the super heavyweight category for a state with absolutely no airport management experience! I agree that this is too much. It should not be more than Rs 500 crores (for short haul jets) and the model should be CIAL of Kochi. The most important thing is that any proposal should be discussed in the Legislature, not announced only in press conferences where reporters sit around meekly and clueless about the aviation scene.
