Team Herald
PORVORIM: Union Ministry for Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MOEF&CC) has submitted a detailed report on the environment impact of the Greenfield International Airport at Mopa to the Supreme Court, who has suspended the Environment Clearance (EC) of the project, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant informed the State Legislative Assembly on Thursday.
Sawant said that due to halt of the ongoing construction work of the project, the first phase of the airport would be now commissioned in September 2021, instead of September 2020.
Replying to the Demands for Grants for Civil Aviation, Chief Minister said that the project is currently pending in litigation before Supreme Court and the next hearing is scheduled this month. “A committee of MOED&CC has conducted the inspection and prepared its report on the environmental issues. The report has now been submitted to the Supreme Court,” Sawant said. “I am confident that during the coming hearing, Supreme Court will lift the EC suspension,” he stated.
Due to the litigation, Sawant said there is a year long delay in commissioning of the airport considering the initial deadline was September 3, 2020. “The first flight was supposed to take off on September 3, 2020,” he said.
Stating that the entire project would be completed in four phases, Chief Minister said the first phase will commissioned in September 2021 which will create passenger handling capacity of 4.4 million annually. Talking about the revenue sharing agreement with GMR Airports, which is constructing this project on Build Own Operate Basis, Sawant said that despite the delay the same formula (of revenue sharing) will continue.
“In case, if there is further delay in commissioning of the project, then state government will have to bear the cost. But the current one year delay will not have any cost burden on the government,” he said.
