The Chief Minister’s move to push for more parking space at the Dabolim airport to facilitate the parking of Air Asia planes and making it the hub of that airline, has been very cleverly timed just as the murmur against the Mopa airport threatens to reach a crescendo.
By declaring that he will ask the Civil Aviation ministry to get more land from the navy for the expansion of the airport, he is offering a lifeline to the Independent MLAs of Salcette who are backing him and are facing increasing pressure from their constituents to withdraw support (which won’t make any difference to the Parrikar government) and join the anti Mopa cause openly.
At the same time he needs to deflect attention from the anti airport stir taking off and becoming a beast which is out of control. The emotive quotient of the stir is only rising with each passing day of reluctance on the part of the government to even engage in a dialogue with the lobby which is opposing the shifting of the Dabolim airport to Mopa. Let us face this. The people of South Goa and actually most right thinking people across Goa have debunked the two airport theory with the force it deserves. Therefore the so called “anti Mopa lobby” is actually an anti shifting of the airport to a completely non conducive location lobby”. This lobby cannot be kept out of the conversation.
The current face off between the government and its people will have deep ramifications on the government to people relationship in Goa. If the government looks at itself as a victor just because it is authorised to do so, on the basis of winning an election, and sees its opponents as the “ill informed” and vanquished, then this government isn’t really here for the long haul.
Mass movements in this country have changed fortunes and regimes. It brought about an unheralded people’s party AAP to power in Delhi notwithstanding that it shot itself in the foot later. In Goa, every mass movement has shaken the administration, from the opinion poll to the language agitation and more recently the Medium of Instruction which forced the government to look at grants for English primary schools.
The Mopa airport may still be built but on the foundation of deep dejection of people who will feel that the government has been unreasonable. But is this a way public projects should be completed in a PPP mode?
Meanwhile let us come back to the Chief Minister’s move to project his governments continued interest in the Dabolim airport by asking for more land for parking planes. While that is a felt need, this government’s own track record in making land available for airport facilities hasn’t been glorious. After the previous Congress government de-notified land for airport parking, for a prominent builder, who fielded the original owner of the land as a front, the Parrikar government did nothing to notify that land again. The new Goa airport is struggling for parking space not just for visitors but also for airport and airline staff. Therefore, the confidence levels of the people in this government to free up any land for the benefit of the Dabolim airport is pretty low.
What is needed now is immense confidence building, a series of dialogues and many rounds of convincing. Mopa will not be built by engineers. It can never be built without the blessings of the people of Goa.
