<The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), the consultants appointed for preparing the Techno-Economic Feasibility (TEF) study have submitted their final report to the steering committee on Mopa airport in September 2005. The steering committee suggested changes, which were incorporated and submitted in November 2005. The TEF report is pending final acceptance by the steering committee and the overnment. The finalisation of a report of the Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India and Environment Impact Assessment Study of the proposed airport at Mopa is in progress. Till then, there is a temporary stay on all works pertaining to the Mopa airport.>
------------------ The term "techno-economic feasibility (TEF) study" seems to be a glaring misnomer. If it means what it is supposed to mean then it should have been done years ago after Mopa was first identified as a prospective airport site. In fact it should have been preceded by the Environment Impact study which however is reportedly yet to be completed! Instead, land acquisition has been going full swing (suspended only recently). What's going on here? >From all accounts, what is passing for a TEF study is actually a full fledged 'blueprint' for Mopa airport which is simply going to be put up for tendering once the green signal comes from Delhi. Who the private builder will be is still a mystery unless ADPI has the inside track without an bidding at all! In my view, TEF should identify the viability threshold for Mopa. This in turn would depend on actual traffic volumes and growth rates, and forecasts. Further it would depend on assumptions about sharing of traffic between Dabolim and Mopa including relaxations if any in the slot regime at Dabolim. Last but not least it would be determined by the size of the aircraft the airport is being designed for, the larger the aircraft the higher the threshold since the investment involved would be much higher. The Environmental impact of A380 (weight, noise, aircraft separation etc) would be uncharted territory. It seems to me that the Mopa plan makes an unrealistically low, upper-single digit projection of traffic growth rates (i.e about 6-7% p.a.) making returns very slow to materialise. Currently Indian traffic projections are for 20% rates for the next five years! At the same time it makes an unrealistically ambitious assumption that the airport will handle A380 superjumbos thus boosting the required investment levels. The resulting combination of low growth rates and ambitious aircraft-type usage is not surprisingly a plan which envisages the replacement of Dabolim by Mopa since all available traffic will have to be captured to secure viability! This also happens to be mandated by the Union Cabinet decision of March 2000 well before low cost airlines and A380s came on the scene. Clearly the need of the hour is to 1) scrap the Union Cabinet resolution and thus secure a level playing field for Dabolim and Mopa 2) scrap the "TEF study" and redo it on a Dabolim+Mopa basis, using current traffic growth rates and less radical aircraft-type assumptions 3) expedite the upgrading and construction of surface transport links between Dabolim and Mopa. This may be what Churchill should continue fighting for instead of melodramatically theatening to throw in the towel and take to the streets.
