TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: Following Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar announcement in the budget to hike the compensation to farmers, who lost their land due to proposed greenfield international airport at Mopa, the Directorate of Civil Aviation has drafted a detailed proposal to provide compensation of up to four times the present value. The proposal will have additional burden of around Rs 220 crore on the state exchequers.
It is interesting to note that the increased compensation would be also paid to those farmers who are already been compensated as per the existing rates of the government.
Sources said that currently government is paying compensation at the rate of Rs 40 to Rs 80 per square metre of land, as per the current land acquisition law. Government has already shelled out Rs 11.77 crores towards compensation to the farmers.
“Now, the government will be paying four times the present compensation value,” sources said adding in the first phase the people, who have already been compensated Rs 11.77 crore, would be considered for the increase.
The proposal would be notified soon after the coming monsoon session of the state legislative assembly beginning from July 27. The session will have discussion and passing of the State Budget 2015-16, which proposes increased compensation to the Mopa airport affected farmers. A budgetary provision of Rs 50 crore has been made.
Total area of 81,29,455 square mtrs is acquired for development of Mopa airport in Pernem taluka. Further, an area of 381 acres is been proposed near the airport site for commercial development. Government had to face severe criticism over the meagre compensation, from those farmers who had sold out their land for the project.
Government is also facing opposition to this project from the people of south Goa, who feel that since Goa is small state, it is not feasible to have two airports and that with commissioning of Mopa airport, the existing international airport at Dabolim would be shut down.
The government is expecting the Mopa airport to be operational by 2018-19. It is currently awaiting environment clearance for the project from Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF).
The government has already shortlisted five bidders for ‘request for qualification’ (RFQ) for the development of the airport in terms of design, build, finance, operation and transfer (DBFOT) basis. The process for drafting ‘request for proposal’ (RFP) has been initiated, after which the financial bids will be opened.
