TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
MARGAO: Goans for Dabolim Only on Thursday asked the AICC Goa desk in-charge Digvijay Singh to clarify the stand of Congress party on the Goa air traffic issue and ensure through the party MLAs an effective and rational approach by Goa’s opposition party in the assembly so that the state government becomes responsible, transparent and accountable.
In a letter, GFDO urged the Congress leader to ensure that the Leader of Opposition and other Congress MLAs in Goa assembly take up strongly to mitigate abortive works and costs to the public exchequer, by ensuring that the de-notified land bearing Survey No 8/1 at Dabolim village is reserved only for aviation needs and therefore re-acquired through due process.
The Congress leader was asked to facilitate discussions with Planning Commission, Ministry of Aviation and other Central government agencies to arrive at a rational decision of retaining Dabolim as the only civilian airport and to facilitate dialogue with Defence Ministry to chalk out a plan to hand over land to AAI for future expansions in a time-bound manner.
GFDO Convenor Fr Eremito Rebelo drew attention of Digvijay Singh to the burning issue of the State’s haste to construct a second airport. “The whole exercise is being done without requisite transparency,” Fr Rebelo added.
Saying that the public had several misgivings about this project, Fr Rebelo sought to know the haste to construct the second airport when Dabolim’s expansion will have a capacity to handle 9.5 million passengers a year. Experts have projected a traffic of 7.3 million (ADPI) and 9.27 million (ICAO) for 2035.
He also demanded to know why the State government wasn’t approaching the Navy for land requirements beyond 2035. “There are vacant lands in the precincts of Dabolim airport enough to cater to Goa’s air traffic needs. In the past, whenever need arose, Navy has parted with the land needed for catering to increased civilian air traffic. The Defence Minister on his Goa visit on May 11, 2013, had assured to settle the land issues for the civilian airport,” he added.
Why is the State government not approaching the Navy for land requirements beyond 2035? There are vacant lands in the precincts of Dabolim Airport enough to efficiently cater to Goa’s entire air traffic needs forever. In the past, whenever need arose, Navy has parted with the land needed for catering to increased civilian air traffic
~GFDO CONVENOR FR EREMITO REBELO
