July 24, 2013 PRESS STATEMENT
Goans For Dabolim Only thanks the pro Mopa group “People for Mopa International Airport” for supporting what the GFDO has been saying all along that only one airport is feasible for Goa. This lays to rest once and for all the government’s baseless claim that Dabolim Airport would remain operational even after the setting up of Mopa Airport. In fact, the government information disseminated on the issue is full of factual errors, stark contradictions and arbitrariness of arguments that fail to challenge the resultant conclusions arising out of objective reasoning and rigorous and rational analysis and evaluation of facts, figures and case studies of similar situations in other parts of the country as well as expert reports on feasibility and the very need of a second airport based on future air traffic projections for Goa. There is no doubt that this thoughtless policy decision of the state government will have extremely serious and far reaching economic and social implications for the state, which larger sections of the Goan community have understood only too well.
GFDO is also glad that Dabolim MLA Mauvin Godinho has at last seen sense and changed his earlier stand by urging the government to “think about the proposed Mopa airport only when the need arises”. However, GFDO pointed out that ironically, it is Mauvin Godinho himself who is allegedly responsible for the strangulation of Dabolim Airport. According to the minutes of the Meeting held on February 14, 2011, Mauvin Godinho, who was then Chairman of Mormugao PDA, along with the then Revenue Minister Jose Philip D’Souza of the NCP, were together the main architects and facilitators of the contentious denotification of Survey 8/1 Dabolim. The recorded minutes of the meeting clearly prove that both of them were the ones who pointed out the existence of a vacant space of land around 70,000 sq. mts area available opposite the Airport meant for parking. It was on the basis of this quid pro quo that notification of Sy. No.8/1 Dabolim which had already reached Section 7 stage of the Land Acquisition Act was withdrawn. Mr. Mauvin Godinho will recall that this claim of availability of 70,000 sq. Metres of land was totally contrary to the findings of an exercise jointly carried out by AAI, PWD and Survey Department in and around the airport, which had ascertained that the land area in Surveys No.8/1 and 9/1 were the only contiguously available areas for expansion of Airport facilities. All other vacant areas they found, were either affected by right of way of National Highway/Railways or was the property of the Ministry of Defence. All this has been clearly recorded in the minutes. Now, even after two years, Mauvin Godinho and Jose Philip D’Souza have failed to identify the elusive land for the authorities. In the meantime, commercial construction activity by a builder is on at breakneck speed on the 36,800 sq. metres of denotified Survey 8/1.
If as he has claimed, Mauvin Godinho is sincere about ensuring that the airport located in his constituency is of international quality and with world class facilities, then GFDO requests him to first of all identify the 70,000 sq. metres of land on the assurance of which he and Jose Philip D’Souza had advised denotification of already acquired land. This will enable the authorities to commence acquisition proceedings forthwith and the much delayed expansion of facilities at Dabolim Airport can get underway. This is especially in light of the fact that the advice of Mauvin Godinho and Jose Philip D’Souza constitutes the very genesis of the present problem. Or else, he should explain to the people of Goa and the people of his constituency, his role in this alleged fraud in the case of the missing 70,000 sq. Metres of land.
Fr. Eremito Rebello Convenor
