A new urban area is being created in Goa’s northernmost taluka of Pernem. In one meeting of the Town and Country Planning Board, the members took a number of far-reaching decisions. Among other decisions, the board not only decided to bring the area of Mopa airport and the surrounding areas under a new Planning and Development Authority, but also gave permission for development on 50 percent of the open spaces in industrial areas. While the former is so that there can be planned development in the areas surrounding the Mopa airport, the latter is to meet the demand for land for industrial purposes so that the government can meet its target of Rs 5000 crore investment.
In the case of the new PDA for Mopa, once the government decided that it would have a new airport in Pernem taluka it was but a natural progression that the next step would be a PDA here. At present TCP states that four villages will come under the new PDA, but that is only for starters. An airport the size of Mopa that is expected to handle 4.4 million passengers once its first phase is complete is going to require more than the development of just four villages for its sustainability. That is when the people of Pernem, who have until now led a peaceful rural life, will be faced with urbanisation and it is going to happen very rapidly. The year 2019, when the first phase of the airport is expected to be completed, is just three years away.
Over a year ago, Herald had predicted that the face of Pernem is set to change and the taluka would end up being more urban and cosmopolitan than any other of the State’s talukas, seeing a whole new township in the coming years. The first step towards this was taken by the TCP Board when it cleared a PDA for Mopa. The Request For Qualification document for the Mopa Airport had already hinted at the changes that the taluka would undergo when it had proposed to provide approximately 381 acres of land adjoining the airport for commercial development for which the FAR would be relaxed up to 4, which will be the highest in the State, not even Panjim’s Patto area has that FAR and it boasts of the tallest buildings in the State.
The hints of changes in Pernem taluka, which could spill over to other parts of the State, have been there all along. The report of the Environment Impact Assessment conducted on the airport project had spoken of the positive impact on the socio-economic environment due to development of the infrastructure and the growth of secondary and tertiary sector businesses, which would enhance the standard of living of the people. When the people of Pernem were promised change, development and employment they were not being led astray. All that will happen. But a question that was not sought to be ever asked is whether the people of Pernem want this kind of development. What they were told was that they were getting an airport and many welcomed that project. What was left unsaid was the development that would come along with the airport.
The government is right when it admits that the Mopa airport area needs to be planned properly and done differently. If an airport is going to come up at Mopa, despite the opposition to it, then the surrounding development had better be done suitably. It will need expert planners, architects and engineers sitting together and discussing. Time is no longer on the side of the government. According to the timetable set for the airport the winning bid for the project is to be decided in the coming days. Pernem, as the Goan knows it today, will soon be part of history.
