-------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Add your name to the CLEAN GOA INITIATIVE | | | | by visiting this link and following the instructions therein | | | | http://shire.symonds.net/pipermail/goanet/2005-October/033926.html | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Of late there is a lot of discussion in the print media about a Union Cabinet decision of March 2000 to the Civil Aviation Ministry purporting to accede to the cloure of Dabolim airport for civilian traffic once Mopa airport is operational. This has added fresh fuel to the fire to the misguided campaign to "Stop Mopa".
What is not widely appreciated is that the Cabinet decision is a reflex response (probably at the instance of the Civil Aviation Ministry rather than on the Cabinet's own initiative) and the Mopa connection may only be incidental. Civil aviation policy vis a vis "greenfield airports" over the past decade or so has settled on the idea that: 1. when a civil enclave runs into constraints a greenfield civilian airport (rather than a military airfield) needs to be built. 2. such airports should be built as public-private partnerships on a BOT contract system 3. when the greenfield airport is commissioned the civil enclave is closed to funnel traffic to the new airport. This "policy" seems to have emerged with the Kochi/Navy hiatus during the 1980s and 90s. It has continued with the Bangalore HAL/Bangalore International Airport face off and also with Hyderabad Begumpet/Hyderabad International Airport currently in process. Nothing is known so far about the Lohegaon (IAF) facility in Pune and the plans for a greenfield airport at Chakan. The policy emerged when low cost aviation in India was unimaginable. Now that such air travel is a reality there is a crying need to change the policy to ensure that civil enclaves such as Dabolim remain operational even when greenfield airports such as Mopa are commissioned nearby. The main implication of this change would be in scaling down the size of greenfield airports (albeit planning them in a modular way for the future) and focusing on their airport features (rather than real estate aspects as at present). The other important change required is that the government must be prepared to play the "greenfield **military** airfield" card (such as at Yenkebe/Seabird) much more than in the past to safeguard the continuation of civil enclaves at existing military airfields. The difference in costs are too great in the contex of the low cost aviation opportunty to be ignored cavalierly by a poor country like India. Besides, the military should be prepared to tough it out rather than expect to sit comfortably on goldmines of facilities like Dabolim! The bottom line: focus energies on the erroneous civil aviation policy rather than on painting Mopa unfairly as the devil.