TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: The battle lines against the Mopa airport appeared finally drawn with Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar expressing his determination to float the Request for Qualification (RFQ) in early October.
With the proposal likely to come up before the Cabinet later this week, voters of Navelim constituency on Sunday told Fisheries Minister Avertano Furtado in clear terms to object and block the RFQ at the Cabinet meeting.
In another development, Goans for Dabolim Only (GFDO) had a meeting on Sunday evening to take stock of the situation arising out of chief minister’s decision to float the RFQ.
After the voters left his residence after submitting a memorandum, Avertano told Herald that he would certainly convey the sentiments of his constituents to the chief minister. In fact, the Navelim MLA has promised to raise the demand of his people if the RFQ proposal comes before the Cabinet meeting later this week.
In the memorandum, the voters requested the MLA to forward their objections to the proposed airport at Mopa to the chief minister as well as other Cabinet minister so that the issue is discussed at the Cabinet meet.
Antonio Alvares expressed shock and surprise that the Goa government was going ahead with the RFQ for the proposed airport without even the mandatory Environment Assessment study.
While asserting that the land was acquired without the EIA study, the delegation requested the fisheries minister to inquire why the government was in a tearing hurry to go ahead with the process and by-passing the procedures, which are detrimental in the long run.
“The Dabolim Airport has capacity to handle passenger traffic of more than 13 million per year and presently the passenger traffic at Dabolim is hardly 3.5 million and even the projected passenger traffic till the year 2035 is only 8 million per year. Therefore applying common sense Dabolim Airport is sufficient beyond 2035,” stated Sidharth Karapurkar.
Navelim Civic and Consumer Forum secretary Joseph L Vaz asked the fisheries minister to request the Goa government to inform the people of Goa that an Expressway from Pernem to Canacona is a compulsory requirement for the construction of the Mopa Airport.
“The government should also tell the people what is the reason for hiding this fact from them. Also tell the people about the route of this expressway and number of houses which will be demolished and property lost along to construct this expressway,” he demanded, while requesting the Navelim MLA to raise the voice of the people in the Assembly and in the Cabinet meetings to stop what he called as the unnecessary hurry in pursing the proposed airport and save Goa from economic and environmental destruction.
