Egged on by Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, in recent weeks, Goa Chief Minister Digambar Kamat chaired the Mopa airport committee, (appointed over two years ago by the Prime Minister), on Friday May 30, 2008. It gave its formal approval to the ICAO report of 2007 recommending a "dual airport" plan for Goa by constructing a greenfield airport at Mopa in North Goa. The committee simultaneously recommended that the Centre review the decision to close down Dabolim airport once Mopa becomes operational. This review is needed in view of the clear assurance by the Prime Minister to do so. The decision to close down Dabolim civil enclave was taken by the Union Cabinet on March 29, 2000. However the word "review" clearly seems a rather weak one. The process could drag on indefinitely as hinted at by Praful Patel himself.
It is hoped that the Kamat Committee is alive to the serious implications of its decision. For starters there is no precedent so far in India of a two airport system. All the successful ones may be in the U.S. and U.K. although Singapore with a large multi-airport system and Tokyo with its two specialised domestic and international airports may be the rare Asian exceptions besides Bangkok which had to revert to two airports when the new one was found wanting on commissioning. The Committee met at the residence of the Chief Ministerand the meeting was attended by the South Goa MP, Mr Francisco Sardinha, the Rajya Sabha MP, Mr Shantaram Naik and the joint secretary of the Union Ministry for Civil Aviation, Mr K N Srivastava, who is also the member secretary of the committee, besides others. The North Goa MP, MrShripad Naik had communicated in advance his inability to attend. In the absence of chief secretary J P Singh, development commissioner Anand Prakash and Mopa airport director-designate, Mihir Vardhan, who is also the North Goa collector, attended the meeting. Mopa airport, planned on the northern border of Goa, in a practically uninhabited location, but whose rich flora and fauna had surprisingly yet to be systematically enumerated via an Environmental Impact Assessment, had met stringent opposition in late 2005 by the South Goa politicians including then Member of Parliament and current state PWD minister Churchill Alemao. The anti-Mopa lobby of South Goa hoteliers feared that the new airport would benefit the neighbouring state of Maharashtra more than Goa. Curiously enough, nothing has been heard since mid-2006 from this powerful lobby. However Alemao has responded by issuing a proforma statement flatly opposing the Mopa project. Mopa would however be closer to the more "happening" north Goa beaches than the staid south Goa ones. Kamat told the media that the report will be presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in mid-June. The Mopa airport with a capacity to handle three million passengers at the end of Phase I (2014) will have a single runway of 3,750 metres (compared to Dabolim's 3,458 metres which is used occasionally by Boeing 747s) to accommodate the operations of the Boeing 747 jumbo and Airbus 380 super jumbo aircraft. It should be noted that the superjumbo can operate from a shorter runway than the jumbo. It only needs to be wider and thicker. The airport is variously estimated to cater to 6-10 million passengers per year eventually. Bangalore and Hyderabad airports are designed for 10 miilion currently. Mopa airport will require about 2,000 acres of land, the notification for acquisition of which will be issued soon. This seems considerably less than the 4000-4500 acres originally mooted. The passenger terminal is planned to cover about 33,000 sqm, three times that of Dabolim. This may not mean much. But the Mopa terminal area may be 50% more than that being currently implemented at a new terminal in Thiruvananthapuram airport which is being touted as the next "gateway of India". The airport project, estimated to cost around $ 205 million (or is it $250 million, the original estimate, or even $400 million according to a recent one?), could be fully commissioned, it is hoped "expeditiously", in about 8 years from now. This compares with the three to three and a half years taken in actual construction of three recent Indian airport projects albeit on a (very) fast-tracked basis. Sources said that the government will first acquire the required land. An international agency or a consultant will then prepare the international tendering for the project construction. The economics of the project and the final costs will be known only then, perhaps a year from now. The actual tendering may happen six months after completion of various formalities including consultations with the Centre. This would shift the construction time line to two years hence. The ownership patterns and operator options will be covered in the international tendering. Thus there should be ample time to make the Mopa plans as transparent as possible unlike in the cases of Bangalore and Hyderabad airports. Meanwhile, the plans for expanding the existing airport at Dabolim (proposed several years ago by Shripad Naik, North Goa MLA when he was Minister of State in Finance in the NDA government) have met with uncertainty due to incomplete land transfer proceedings from Indian Navy to Airports Authority of India. Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik who is a member of the High Powered Committee stated that Mr Srivastava has been requested to expedite the process of construction of a new terminal building, parallel taxiway, apron, cargo complex etc for the Dabolim airport, which are delayed due to files pending before the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation, Goa government and Defence Ministry. Srivastava who is also the member secretary of High Powered Committee has assured that he would expedite the matter in his ministry, said Naik at a press conference. Despite the planned upgradation of Dabolim, the airport would not be able to cope with traffic beyond 2013, the Canada-based International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) had said in its 'Goa Dual Airport Study' prepared for the government of Goa/Union civil aviation ministry. The airport has already handled an estimated 2.6 million passengers in 2007 (which is comparable to Mopa's planned start up capacity of 3 million in 2014!). The term "Dual airport" should ring an alarm bell. It means duplication of airline offices in Dabolim and Mopa. In this era of financial stringency, will this be sustainable? How long will it be before the pendulum swings one way or another?Then either Dabolim civil enclave will close (as in Bangalore and Hyderabad which the Kamat Committee is supposedly well aware of) or Mopa will become a white elephant. Note that signals are already being given for the state government to plan to take a larger-than-usual stake in the Mopa PPP project. What is the state's financial position like in this regard? The ICAO report superficially talks of "dual airport". It has agreed only on "political and social" (not economic) grounds. It says nothing about how to manage the resulting competition and induce the required co-operation between the two airports to obtain viability of both for the long haul i.e. at least twenty years in tandem. The Mopa committee has expressed concern over a number of residential buildings that have come up within Indian Navy premises at Dabolim. The people living in those buildings are not working at INS Hansa. The Navy has been assiduously ensuring over the decades that Dabolim airport will always remain under its control. Nevertheless, Goa government plans to review mutation cases of Indian Navy land ownership at Dabolim. Presumably these relate to the expansion of Dabolim airport from a mere 250 odd acres in 1961 to its present area of 1700 acres by 1968. In the meantime, the Indian Navy has announced that the MiG-29K fighter and MiG-29KUB trainer aircraft purchased in a 2004 deal with Russia for the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov (being refitted for 2012 delivery to India), would be not only stationed at Dabolim but also repaired, maintained and overhauled there, unlike the Sea Harriers which had to be sent to Kochi naval air station for these purposes. It is not known what the personnel engaged there would do then. Would they move to Dabolim? How would this go down with Goan activists demanding employment for locals?. The aircraft carrier itself is to be based in Karwar. The squadron would number 16 (12 fighters and 4 trainers). It would be the world's first operational squadron of the aircraft which is untried and untested in this context anywhere i.e. Indian Navy is a launch customer for MiG29K/KUB It is common knowledge that the Indian Navy has halved its 24-30 aircraft-strong squadron of the aerodynamically complex Sea Harriers over a period of 20 years purely due to accidents while training/exercising in and around Dabolim. How long would it be before the MiG-29Ks are decimated and replacements ordered? On the other hand, with talk of acquisition of new Long Range Maritime Patrol (LRMP) planes for the Navy, the prospects are for further stonewalling of any plans to expand civil enclave space at Dabolim. The military may be banking on the desperate hankering in the country for "world class" greenfield airports where the grass is (wrongly) believed to be greener.This propensity has been inadvertently reinforced by journalists who have got carried away by airport developer PR in Bangalore and Hyderabad and, even in advance, in the case of Mopa recently. Is Kamat factoring all these material issues into the government's long term decision making process, if any? The government may have much more on its hands than it has bargained for. Unfortunately, the intelligentsia could probably not care a whit until and unless someone tries to politicise things, usually a case of a tempest in a tea pot. Caveat: The foregoing constitutes the author's own views, based on available information, and should not be attributed to any group with which he may be affiliated.
