Immediately after the Militarised Liberation of Goa, Jawaharlal Nehru, the then and the first Prime Minister of India is said to have stated “Ajib hai eh Goa ke Log”. Looking back over the last 50 years or so, it looks like he was right. We appear to have acted more out of follies than fore-sight.
While a state like Kashmir which was always a part of India, was granted a special status, Goa which was under the Portuguese rule for over 450 years till liberation never aspired for any such status. After over 50 years of Liberation, commercialization and now what appears to be the occupation of Goa by land sharks, our government is talking about special status. We have many urgent needs from roads to bridges and flyovers to quality higher education and health care to quality tourism.
The list could go on and on but instead of looking at the immediate needs, successive governments have gone ahead and destroyed the age old proven establishments of Comunidades, control and ownership of lands, agriculture, heritage professions. They have landed the State in a mess of illegal mining, land grab scandals, poor quality tourism, sub-standard infrastructure of roads, educational and health facilities, unscrupulous growth in construction, destruction of eco-sites, etc.
And now the latest is the scramble for a new airport at Mopa. (Some one asked if MOPA was an acronym for Ministers’ Own Private Airport). The reduction of petrol prices — ostensibly to appease the common man on one side and the levy of entry tax on the other – which has resulted in a burden on all & sundry for obvious reasons is another move which appears beyond reason. During his last tenure as chief minister, Parrikar had spent crores of rupees on his dream of a sky bus. All that is left is a bus dangling midair at Margao.
Today, with regard to MOPA/Dabolim one question for which an answer that is not quite clear in the minds of the people is – Do we need another airport? If so, is it because – 1) Dabolim is too small? 2) Can the present runway not handle the largest air-crafts? 3) Is the quantum of passengers so large that the present airport is insufficient to handle the same? 4) Is there no sufficient space for more terminals?
What Goa needs is not a new airport but an upgrading of the Dabolim airport, new terminals for domestic & international passengers and cargo terminals. Considering our area, population & infrastructure, we certainly would not want an airport to handle more than 30 million passengers.
