<The civil aviation ministry has constituted a committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, Mr Pratapsing Rane to advise it on contentious issues related to the controversial proposed Mopa international airport.
One crucial issue that the committee will go into is the "necessity of either continuing or closing the Dabolim airport". The order was issued on January 27 by Mr B K Dhal, under secretary (civil aviation ministry, government of India) and was circulated to the media this evening. Besides Mr Rane, the committee will consists of the Rajya Sabha MP, Mr Shantaram Naik, Lok Sabha MPs, Mr Churchill Alemao and Mr Shripad Naik and the Goa Chief Secretary, Mr P S Singh. The civil aviation joint secretary will be the convenor of the committee, which has been given three months time to submit its report to the ministry. The committee has also been empowered to co-opt or invite any other person or organisation as deemed fit, according to the order. The panel will be serviced by the Airports Authority of India. The order states that the decision to set up the committee was taken in view of divergent views expressed by local representatives and the people of Goa on setting up of new airport at Mopa.> --------- It is clear that the commitee will be a face off of one unguided missile against 5 pop-gun patraos! It will be interesting to see how the former can be persuaded to change his obdurate stance. One way out may be to co-opt some eminent person(s) who will make him see sweet reason. This could include Mr Sreedharan of Delhi Metro and KRC fame, Mr Narayna Murthy CM of Infosys and ex-chairman of BIAL, and Mr. Kurien, MD of CIAL. Otherwise it will be upto the PM to dangle some political carrot to neutralise the opposition to Mopa. But the really crucial role of the co-opted member(s) will be to repackage the Mopa project as a supplement to rather than subsitute for Dabolim. This is the need of the hour.
