Will the Defence Ministry have defining control over the Mopa airport too?

The memorandum of Understanding between the promoters of the Mopa airport, GMR Goa Airport Pvt Ltd, and the Government of India (as opposed to the concession agreement signed with the Goa government) gives enough reason to believe that the Defence forces will have significant if not defining control over the new Mopa airport, even though Dabolim will be retained as a defence airport.

The people of Goa have the right to know, and a clarification is in order as to whether the kind of controls the Ministry of Defence has asked for and received is common for all green field airports, especially those which are in the vicinity of an already existing defence airport.

The MoU reveals that the Defence Ministry has certainly had its way  with land. Despite former Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar’s reservations about parting with additional land for the Defence forces, the agreement is specific. 5 acres of land will be given on lease to the Ministry of Defence for the entire period of concession. In addition, the Defence Ministry will have the right to use the airport without any “restriction or restraint”, on payment.

However there are restrictions to civil flying, in the Mopa airport which is being built specifically for civil operations. It states that there will be “no civil flying” while military flying is being undertaken in this area.

While the need to take over the airport during absolute emergencies is justified, if the same is the case for all ther airports, it does appear that that the Navy will use the new Mopa airport almost as a extension of Dabolim. This apprehension is justified because of certain clauses in the MoU like this. “Operations from this airport shall at no stage interfere with search and rescue and other high priority military maritime air operations, including coastal security operations, planned from INS Hansa”. What needs to be understood is that INS Hansa had no felt need of another airport base for its operations and at no stage were the bidders for the airport construction and management informed of the extent of involvement of the defence forces, beyond what is obviously needed for security and defence operations during times of emergency.

It now appears that the need of the Navy/Defence will not be limited to extraordinary situations but pretty much during the normal course. This looks to be a significant change in the goalpost of the management and running of the Mopa airport. The insistence on a joint ATC for both airports at Dabolim, mind you, is also a pointer to the need of control, access and priority for the Navy.

The nature of this MoU appears to go against the spirit of constructing the Mopa airport. The need for a new airport was felt principally to take the civilian air operations out of Dabolim and have an international airport to cater to the growth of aviation, while ensuring that the needs of Defence are totally catered to in Dabolim. It was somewhat unexpected that the Defence Ministry would want to have a say and sway over Mopa's operations in this manner.

It is incumbent upon the Defence Ministry as well as GMR to clarify whether this MoU is completely at par with similar MoUs for other green field airports. The points in the Mopa MoU, do not give much reason to believe so.