Responding to the Chief Minister’s appeal to “people, especially activists, not to raise unnecessary objections” to projects like the Mopa Airport and Tiracol private hotel, GFDO appealed to the state government, especially the Chief Minister not to impose unnecessary and massive projects on tiny Goa, involving huge tracts of scarce and valuable land. The hollowness of the Chief Minister’s claim that his government is truly “committed to promoting pollution free and environmental friendly projects in the state, has been exposed by his government’s resounding silence to the concerns raised by the people regarding both these projects in terms of viability, environmental concerns and even potential for jobs for Goans that he claims is the justification for these unnecessary projects that they allege will cause irreversible damage to the state. The people are stakeholders in the state, and governments are only caretakers for a period of five years. The government’s wrong decisions, especially regarding these massive projects, wherein land is snatched from ordinary local Goans and practically gifted to vested real estate sharks could result in irreversible damage to the state, its ecology and its people.
Once again, GFDO throws an open challenge to Chief Minister Parsekar to engage in an open debate regarding the merits and the dangers of the Mopa Airport project. If the Chief Minister and his government are so convinced about the benefits of these projects for future generations of Goans, then why the reluctance to enter into a dialogue with the real stakeholders of the land – the people of Goa who have been raising concerns over these massive projects for the last two years? Referring to the Civil Aviation Minister of State Dr. Mahesh Sharma’s strange and inexplicable statement in the Rajya Sabha that “Union Cabinet’s decision regarding closure of existing Dabolim airport at Goa might be reviewed so as to permit the continuance of Dabolim for civilian operations even after the commissioning of the new international airport at Mopa,” GFDO said that this was a distressing revelation of the inefficient and careless functioning of the NDA(2) government, which was not even aware that the previous UPA government had already reviewed and reversed the decision to close down Dabolim Airport taken by the preceding NDA(1) government. GFDO said that in any case, reviews of decisions by successive governments were irrelevant and would not be the deciding factor if Dabolim Airport was to be kept open. Goa’s air traffic, which Aviation experts have deemed insufficient to sustain two airports, and the development of new and existing airports at Chipi, Belgaum, Karwar, Hubli and Kolhapur would definitely ensure that the government airport of Dabolim would have to be closed down if Mopa was ever commissioned. Therefore, GFDO warned the people not to get confused by the government’s pretense of reviewing and reversing a decision that had in fact already been reviewed and reversed. GFDO also calls upon the people of Goa to be alert and observe how “Union Cabinets” are capable of reviewing the decisions of previous governments and thus go on bluffing the people by covering up the real and unpalatable truth that two airports are in fact, unviable in Goa. For GOANS FOR DABOLIM ONLY Fr. Eremito Convenor
