There was an urgent need to stop the Mopa Airport tender process since there are no proper project approvals. Even the so-called Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) report is based on unapproved hypothetical draft master plan, without site clearances.
Mopa Greenfield Airport is still being attempted near the geographical boundary of Goa for creating a greater Goa Greenfield development region linked to the rejected Goa city-state smart city, under the proposed Bengaluru-Mumbai investment/industrial corridor. This Greenfield development region covered districts of the neighbouring states of Maharashtra and Karnataka. However, since Panjim town has been selected for the smart city project initiative in the rural-urban State of Goa, the Mopa Greenfield Airport has to be rejected. Do we need a greater Goa Greenfield development region (for promoting Mopa Airport) to make Panjim smart?
Special Economic Zones (SEZs) have been rejected in Goa. Also, clusters/ agglomerations under National Investment & Manufacturing Zones (NIMZs) have neither been notified and demarcated on the land-use planning documents & land-use planning maps of Goa. Therefore, there is no question of providing any transportation connectivity to NIMZs / SEZs in the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Maharashtra to create unwanted manufacturing zones/investment regions by destroying villages in Goa to promote Mopa airport for cargo transportation.
The high-speed freight corridor along the fragile Western Ghats / Konkan Railway route has been rejected. Can we allow the required high-speed transportation corridors to provide connectivity to Mopa Airport through the eco-sensitive Western Ghats, to define investment nodes and investment region in Goa linked to the proposed Bengaluru-Mumbai Industrial/ Investment corridor?
The proposed Mopa Greenfield airport is linked to the business plans of large agro-business , tourism and industrial projects in the neighbouring districts of Karnataka & Maharashtra.The water requirements for these projects is by diverting the flow of rivers in the upper catchment areas.This river diversion has the potential to destroy the bio-diversity of the region, besides having negative impacts on the traditional livelihood activities of the local communities in Goa. Can we allow such man-made disasters?
The tiny state of Goa does not need two airports. The Greenfield Mopa Airport should be rejected. Instead, the existing Goa International airport at Dabolim should be upgraded over a period of time through a 30-year master plan, to meet the long-term sustainable air traffic requirements of Goa.
