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Mopa controversy continues despite central nod Sandesh Prabhudesai 30 March 2000 <The announcement from Delhi regarding the cabinet approving the site of Mopa, a village on Goa-Maharashtra border, has thus received mixed reaction here while lobbying for and against the proposal is expected to continue even further. Incidentally, the announcement came while all ministers and officials of the civil aviation ministry including union minister Sharad Yadav are presently attending a conference here, which began at Fort Aguada Beach Resorts yesterday. "I am not averse to the idea of having the international airport in Goa. But we can get the site changed if we desire", says chief minister Francisco Sardinha. He plans to have a breakfast meeting with Yadav tomorrow morning to discuss the matter in detail.> Why despite all this the announcement of the Union Cabinet did not register in Goa and quietly slipped into oblivion until recently is a real mystery! Note that the CM at the time was Sardinha -- not Rane or Faleiro. But Rane may have been "the one" when Mopa was surveyed and selected in 1997/98! <The Mopa site was however selected by the joint committee of the ministry and the AAI in March last year, followed by green signal from the then local Congress government in October. The matter however came before the cabinet only after the defence ministry gave its NOC last month.> Even this perspective is limited because it did not take into account the history of the civil enclave (CE) at Kochi NAS and the civil enclave at Bangalore HAL airport. At the former there was no physical scope for a proper modern civilian airport and a new greenfield airport eventually had to be built with private (NRI) participation resulting in surrender of the existing CE to the Navy. At the latter there was a lot of waffling by the HAL for and against continuation of civilian flights until the contending private investor (Tata) in the new international airport project put down his foot and got a commitment to discontinue them. This was back in the mid-90s and the successful bidder (Siemens/L&T) was actually identified only a decade later! But the 'civil enclave closure' model stuck and got codified in the March 2000 Union Cabinet decision vis a vis Mopa.even though the Indian aviation scene changed drastically in the 2000s. The decision has since been applied in the case of Hyderabad Begumpet vs Shamshahabad and re-affirmed by the present civil aviation Minister in a written reply to the RS member of Parliament from Goa. He has however agreed to go by whatever the PM decides after the latter's meeting in Delhi yesterday with the high level delegation from Goa seeking the reversal of the Cabinet decision. In the meantime it will be interesting to see what is decided in the case of of Pune's Lohegaon IAF airport/CE when Chakan is firmed up. In fact Lohegaon is due to go "international" on Dec 12, the birthday of the civil aviation minister's political mentor. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- * G * O * A * N * E * T *** C * L * A * S * S * I * F * I * E * D * S * ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Spread the Christmas cheer - even when you're not here! Send Christmas Greetings to your loved ones in Goa. 2005 Christmas Package - Flowers, Bubbles and Layers of Love. http://www.goa-world.com/expressions/xmas/ -----------------------------------------------------------------------
