Two reports on the much touted Tourism Meet of Aug 8 are worrisome to put it mildly. One compounds the confusion in the other. These reports appeared in HERALD and TOI of Aug 9. HERALD says "Gov[ernor] links top notch airports to tourism." For good measure he is said to have added " if Bangalore and Hyderabad and Cochin can have airports on the PPP model so can Goa for its future growth". The worthy gentleman seems to be either unaware of or is covering up the serious problems of connectivity (both surface and air) especially Bangalore is facing on account of the PPP project of BIAL which goanetters should be aware of by now.
In fact these airports along with the Delhi and Bombay PPP projects may be instrumental in jacking up costs of civil aviation across the board in the country soon with UDF on passengers and higher space rentals/charges for other airport users. Even AAI airports are now wanting to follow the lead in greed. At this rate Dabolim will not be far behind once Mopa is up and running. Higher costs is one thing, no service at all is an altogether different and unacceptable matter. This is tied to the other half baked idea proposed by Gov Sidhu. "Dabolim airport which is slated for expansion can cater to domestic travel while the new airport could cater to charter and international flights". The problem is that the latter are very few in number on an average daily basis. How can a mega project envisaging A380 superjumbos be meaningful in this context? The only result will be that idomestic traffic will be sucked away from Dabolim and the latter will have to close. What the Governor is talking about is only echoing the earlier idea of the Chief Minister who, for public consumption, has been saying "Mopa yes, but not at the cost of Dabolim". Unless the Mopa plan is downsized to a world class REGIONAL airport (catering to Tier II town traffic from surrounding areas, connecting to secondary airports (if any) of Bombay and Bangalore, and growing gradually and systematically), a full fledged international airport right off the bat at Mopa will be a disaster for Dabolim and for Goa. Dr Sidhu is also supposed to have given a plug for air cargo without specifying its location. Here is a line of business that Mopa can conceivably depend on since there are serious constraints at Dabolim for it. It would have to be specialised cargo aviation and not in the belly space of passenger airlines (which would be predominant at Dabolim). Careful and thoughtful analysis of Goa's cargo business is required, not off the cuff plans. The rest of the report is about tourism which may be the real forte of the new governor. For this we turn to the TOI story titled "Two airports can co-exist in state: Promotion of eco, intellectual tourism also stressed upon". Besides the two mentioned (btw, what is intellectual 'tourism'????) there are also references to leisure tourism, adventure tourism, hinterland tourism, spice tourism, health tourism etc etc. Goa tourism may be in a crisis mode currently and the need of the hour is to converge on the most beneficial ones rather than grope around for a magic bullet, spreading resources thin in the process. The upshot is that the confusion in aviation is compounded and confounded by that in tourism. In the case of the former it is high time the powers that be spelled out how the two airports 'would' co-exist instead of being stuck in the rut of 'can co-exist'. This requires a sensible discussion of how the Mopa airport project (its business model, design, finance, build-up etc) would be managed along with its subsequent operation as well as regulation to co-exist in a mutually beneficial way with Dabolim civil enclave (including the latter's upgradation and expansion) for, say, twenty (20) years into the future? But its easier to feed the Goan public with catchy slogans rather than substantive plans. DrSidhu's idea, expressed earlier, that tourism in Goa should be based on a balance of interests between environment and economy and that Goa needs to identify its own brand image and develop it, is no doubt indisputable in principle. But it needs to be translated urgently into action beginning with the plan(s) for Mopa and Dabolim taken together rather than in isolation. About the Dabolim airport, he said earlier (again in HERALD) that though it is a defence airport, it needs to be continued with even after the PPP one is commissioned. Hopefully he means as a user-friendly facility for the aam admi and not just for occasional VVIPs as at HAL and Begumpet nowadays. The worry on this score has only been accentuated rather than attentuated with his newest comments. I do hope I am wrong about this-- for Goa's sake.
