Greenfield airports policy a consolidated one: Patel Vinay Kumar http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/27/stories/2008042755871000.htm < In case of a proposal to set up an airport within 150 km of an existing airport, the application shall be considered by the Steering Committee. The Committee shall consider all relevant facts and circumstances including contractual liabilities. After the Committee's nod, the proposal will be sent to the Civil Aviation Ministry which shall place it before Union Cabinet for consideration. Airports for cargo or non-scheduled flights and for heliports need not be submitted for approval to the Civil Aviation Ministry. These cases may be considered and decided by the DGCA. However, official sources pointed out, certain functions to be performed at the airport such as air traffic services, security, customs and immigration would continue to be performed by the Central agencies.>
Let us consider what form (and, if possible, size) Mopa airport should take in view of the above, in two parts. Since it would be within the 150 km separation rule, it would require review by a multi-ministerial Steering Committee set up for this purpose under the civil aviation secreteary. For the time being we will overlook the option wherein exemption is granted to cargo, charter or helicopter oriented airports. The remit of the Steering Committee is to "consider all relevant facts and circumstances including contractual liabilities". This wording reflects the situation prevailing mainly in Bangalore and Hyderabad where new airports have come into being at each place with a previously agreed concession that no other airport can function within a 150 km radius for 25 years. As a result, existing airports (both civil enclaves, like Dabolim) had to close. Hyderabad Begumpet has already closed in March while Bangalore HAL will follow suit once the new Bangalore airport gets the go-ahead to start operations in a month or so. It also has a bearing on proposals for new airports for Delhi and Mumbai where existing privatised ones will be affected. The situation in Goa is that the civil enclave is functioning in Dabolim, which is only about 40 km as the crow flies from Mopa. There is a Union Cabinet resolution of March 2000 to the effect that Dabolim civil enclave must close when Mopa starts operations. It is not known whether this constitutes some sort of implicit "contractual obligation" with the country' s executive branch. The scope for revoking such Cabinet resolutions needs to be seriously considered by Goa Government for petitioning the Centre. The grounds would be (a) hastiness (at a time when there was no private developer in sight and still there is none and consequentially no tenure is extant) and (b) nastiness (in terms of the disproportionate disruption (sentimental, connectivity, businesses/employment affected etc in a small state of Goa as compared to big cities like Hyderabad and Bangalore). The main issue the Steering Committee is likely to focus on might be the effect of Dabolim traffic on Mopa profitability. Here there are two scenarios which need to be considered. The first is a "logical scenario" in which Mopa is designed, a priori, so that normal, ongoing Dabolim operations have little or no impact on Mopa's profitability. (Note that this is the converse of the BLR/HYD situations where the remit of the Steering Committee may be to re-configure HAL and Begumpet to operate with little or no impact on the profitability of the new airports where there are severe contractual obligations). Goa Government has formally opted, in principle, for a two-airport solution earlier this year and logically it should involve designing Mopa on a clean sheet of paper.. The second scenario is a "perverse" one in which a given design of Mopa is implemented wherein ANY traffic of Dabolim will be considered as having an unacceptable impact on Mopa profitability and would generate calls for the closure of Dabolim civil enclave. The latter should, in normal circumstances, be unacceptable to Goa Government. The impetus for this option would arise because there is already a proposal dated 2005 from the ICAO which has even been revised slightly in 2007. So it would constitute an "easy way out" for the civil aviation ministry if it is bent on imposing its will, unilaterally, on Goa's airport planning. There is an urgent need to ensure that this option is not stealthily invoked because the alternative (#1) requires out-of-the-box thinking which may be too much of a stretch especially for Goa government. A third, contingency, scenario may also need to be considered. This is centred on the civil aviation ministry's periodic threat ever since the Mopa project was mooted ten years ago, to shift the airport to Sindhudurg across the border in Maharashtra. This has raised fears of erosion of Goa's competitive advantage in tourism and new entrants emerging in southern Maharashtra. The Minister's espoused soft spot for his home state in aviation projects makes the threat more palpable. A more insidious threat in this domain is whether Dabolim civil enclave would be required to close because of the 150 km separation rule vis a vis Sindhudurg with Goa being left with NO airport of its own. There are suggestions emanating from Bangalore where such a possibility may also be a realistic one if HAL does have to stay closed. There is talk of Tamil Nadu putting up a new airport just across the border to serve Bangalore's unmet needs. This scenario is boosted on the purported grounds that the impact of the 150 km separation rule stops at the inter-state border. Would a Sindhudurg airport result in the closure of Dabolim civil enclave or not? The exact interpretation of the rule in cross border terms needs to be studied carefully before Goa government makes any commitments to thje civil aviation ministry. In the next part we will try to evaluate the options for Mopa's business model in order, specifically, to pass muster with the Steering Committee.
