PANJIM: It has taken 16 years – and counting – for the Government of Goa to get the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Mopa airport done, after Pratapsing Rane as Chief Minister had issued directions to get the EIA done by calling for quotations and tenders. And yet the Goa government has carried out a pre-bid meeting of companies that have responded to a Request for Qualification for the Mopa airport, which, according to MoEF cannot be built without an EIA.
According to notings on the file pertaining to the EIA, Mr Rane, on a note prepared by P R Bumb, then Secretary (Airports) stating that the Chairman AAI had “advised” the Government of Goa that it “shall get the Environment Impact Assessment done”, directed the State government to “have the Environmental Impact Assessment done by calling of quotations or tenders. The most likely parties for quotations may be known from AAI”. This note was signed on 8.5.1998 or 9.5.1998 (not very legible on file)
Six chief ministers who have governed Goa since then – including the broken term of Manohar Parrikar – did not complete the EIA, which was Goa’s responsibility. The CMs include Dr Wilfred D’Souza, Pratapsingh Rane, Luizinho Faleiro, Francisco Sardinha and Digambar Kamat.
According to clinching documents and notings available with Herald; formalities of calling for a quotation for the EIA was dependent on the GoI conveying its approval for the site. The government has still not come clear on when the site approval was given.
In April 2014, Engineering India Limited (EIL) was given the task to conduct the EIA study for the Greenfield international airport at Mopa and is close to submitting this report, but that hasn’t stopped the government from conducting pre-bid meetings for a project which doesn’t have any environmental clearance.
It is important to recall the crucial meeting where the Chairman AAI had stated that the Government of Goa “shall” get the environment Impact assessment done. On May 6, 1998, the then Secretary (Airport) Goa, P R Bumb attended a meeting called by the Airports Authority of India where senior representatives of the DGCA, Defence, Air India and the Ministry of Environment and Forests attended. The then DGM Engineering S P S Bakshi gave a presentation of his study of the two proposed sites in Goa – Mopa and Quitla. A preliminary technical feasibility study report was submitted stating that Mopa would be more advantageous. However, it was not the final site clearance report. At that meeting K Ramalingam, Member (Planning) AAI said that for confirmation of alignment of the proposed runway, it “would be essential for the government of Goa to get survey points fixed with the help of Survey of India office of Bangalore. He cautioned that a “slight deviation even by an inch may create operational difficulties once the runway is constructed”. Importantly, the then Chairman AAI, Ranjan Chatterjee, accepted this suggestion and further said that the Goa government shall get the EIA done.
After Mr Bumb submitted his report to his Goa government on return, then Chief Minister Pratapsing Rane directed the EIA to be done. But as we have seen, his government fell in July two months after this, but his successors didn’t act on his order. And when Mr Rane himself returned to power in 2005, the issue was so buried that he too left this unattended. It was only when CM Parrikar put the project on a fast track that his government belatedly realised that the no negotiable statutory requirement of the EIA was not met. The current exercise of getting the EIA done after land has been acquired and the project process kick-started is clearly flawed.
