https://epaper.timesgroup.com/Olive/ODN/TimesOfIndia/shared/ShowArticle.aspx?doc=TOIGO%2F2018%2F01%2F11&entity=Ar01100&sk=9E59B40D&mode=text
Every day that passes in Goa, there are more reminders of the lasting messages underlying the classic Hans Christian Anderson tale about a vain emperor surrounded by cynical sycophants, and an intimidated public. In the story, the ruler is duped by tailors who tell him they have woven special garments that are most beautiful, but will be invisible to those who are ‘unfit for their positions, stupid or incompetent’. So the pompous fool walks around naked, being praised for his non-existent clothes by yes-men, while the general populace is too frightened to tell him the truth, for obvious reasons. There are many relevant examples of this phenomenon playing out in the world today, with particularly glaring incidence in Goa. The most egregious case is the billion-dollar Mopa “second airport” project, which is being steadily forced upon a largely helpless state populace. Ask any experienced veteran of the airline industry anywhere in the world to assess the situation in India’s smallest state, and the answer will always be exactly the same — there is no way two commercial airfield facilities can be viable in Goa. If Mopa becomes functional, Dabolim will inevitably shut down. Off the record, every official of Airport Authority of India (AAI) admits the same. Yet, once again last week in the state assembly, chief minister Manohar Parrikar claimed Dabolim would continue to operate civilian flights after Mopa comes online in 2020. Here, it is useful to remember the findings of the only rigorously professional and neutral study ever conducted on the question of two airports in Goa by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) arm of the United Nations, just a decade ago, in 2007. The study projected air traffic ramping up to almost 10 million passengers by 2035 by the most optimistic scenarios, and confirmed Dabolim will easily handle the growth with some minor improvement. The bottom line is unambiguous, “a dual airport system is a second best solution only, compared to a single airport system to serve a relatively small air transportation market such as Goa’ s market.” In short, open Mopa means closed Dabolim. Look anywhere in the world, and the record of crudely foisted second airport experiments is abysmally bad. In a case very much like Goa, the little town of Ciudad Real built an expensive new facility to receive international flights, even though the successful Barajas International airport outside Madrid was just over an hour’s drive. But almost no one wanted to use the new option, which quickly teetered into bankruptcy. A few years later, the entire infrastructure was sold to a Chinese construction company for a few thousand euros. It is still lying there unused. However, the most strikingly relevant case for Goa is that of Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport in Sri Lanka, now popularly known as ‘the world’s emptiest international airport’. There are so many similarities between Mopa and this ridiculous white elephant project, forced onto his hometown by one-time strongman president Mahinda Rajapaksa (who named his pet project after his mother), despite the presence of a perfectly adequate and well-located international airport in Colombo. For some time after it was opened with great pomp in 2013, the leader could force airlines to fly in to use it. But then as always happens in a democracy, the regime changed. Now all foreign carriers abandoned the new airport in Hambantota. The national carrier Sri Lankan Airlines eventually also left. Today, there are exactly two airlines using the hangars, runways and passenger terminals. There is no way to pay back the immense loans it required to build the unnecessary scam infrastructure so the government has resorted to the humiliating process of inviting expressions of interest from any companies interested in using the buildings for any commercial activity whatsoever. This is precisely what is on the cards for Goa at Mopa. The state political cadre conveniently neglects to factor in the reality that “greenfield” airport projects have generally not worked in India, most especially in tourist destinations. The AAI itself will readily admit that, since the dawn of the new millennium, it has built at least eight new airports, which have failed to draw even a handful of flights. In Jaisalmer, AAI spent over $17 million for a modern facility to handle hundreds of thousands of visitors per year, but not a single one has yet disembarked. Hans Christian Andersen’s famous old story has a powerful ending. Only one innocent child was unawed and unselfconscious enough to raise his voice to shout “but he has no clothes on”, and then everyone else was emboldened to let the all-powerful leader know he was fooling no one but himself. This is where the analogy to Goa today falters, because everyone knows, but no one speaks up.