TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: If Dabolim gets a taxiway parallel to the runaway as was planned, five times the current number of planes would be able to land and take off making the need for Mopa obsolete, former chief minister and tourism minister Dr Wilfred de Souza has said.
Referring to a meeting that took place chaired by the then civil aviation minister Praful Patel and between the then Vice Admiral of the Navy G S Bedi, then Secretary of Civil Aviation Ajay Prasad, Chairman of the Airports Authority of India K Ramalingam and himself as the then deputy chief minister and tourism minister on May 12, 2006, Dr de Souza said that of all the upgrades planned during that meeting, only the parallel taxiways was yet to take off.
“At that meeting the Indian Navy had agreed to provide nine acres of land to the civil aviation ministry in lieu of land to be given elsewhere. It was decided to increase the size of the apron, to be able to accommodate 10 full sized aircrafts, which has been done partially, to build a new international airport terminal, which is being done and is almost ready and crucially, to construct two parallel taxiways — one from the end of the runway to the apron and the other from the apron to the beginning of the runway,” Dr de Souza said. The old terminal could take only six wide bodied planes.
“I was told by Admiral Sureesh Mehta, who was then in charge of the Navy at Dabolim that if the parallel taxiway was built, we would be able to host five times the number of planes than we are currently having,” Dr de Souza said.
He said that the parallel taxiways were not constructed yet possibly because of the expenditure sharing that was earlier supposed to be borne by the Civil Aviation Ministry, but has now been decided to be borne on a 50:50 sharing basis by the Civil Aviation Ministry and the Defence Ministry.
“If we make Dabolim superfine and of international standards, nobody will be willing to put their money into Mopa,” Dr de Souza said stressing that a second airport isn’t necessary for the State.
He also said that the land where currently the quarters of the Civil Aviation Officials lie, was to be shifted and made into hangars to accommodate repairs of planes as part of phase B that was planned during that meeting, which is also yet to take off.
