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Goa likely to have international airport

After waiting for over three long years, Goans now hope to get their own international civilian airport, clearing a major infrastructure hurdle in the state that is extremely popular with tourists.

Since Goa's liberation in 1961, civilian traffic has operated out of the Dabolim naval airport, located in the port town of Vasco. However, the Dabolim airport is ill equipped to handle the phenomenal growth in traffic over the years. Both, tourists and chartered flights have increased dramatically following the tourist boom witnessed in the state.

While Goa's genuine demand for the airport soon became entangled with similar expectations from many other states and regions, it moved forward when former prime minister H D Deve Gowda took up the case on a priority level after his visit to the state in December 1996.

The official nod has come from the joint sub-committee of the civil aviation ministry and the Airports Authority of India, which last month inspected the site of the existing airport as well as the proposed ones.

The sub-committee officials witnessed the problems faced by the travellers at Dabolim and the confusion caused by the chartered flights. The sub-committee has also taken into consideration the growth potential of civilian traffic in the near future.

The officials have chosen a site at Mopa, a village on the Goa-Maharashtra border in the Konkan region for the new airport. Another site, Quittol, on the Karnataka border in south Goa, was rejected after inspection.

"We are now awaiting the final report, which would also propose guidelines for the capacity and private participation in building it," said Goa chief secretary Dr G C Srivastava.

The Goa government has suggested a joint venture between the government and a private firm for building and operating the airport. The cost is estimated at Rs 20 billion while construction time is put at two years.

If allowed, the decision is likely to force the Maharashtra government to shelve its proposal of building an international airport in the Sindhudurg district, just across the Goa border, as part of its plans to develop tourism in the Konkan region.

What, however, remains to be seen is whether the new Bharatiya Janata Party-led government gives the final approval to the project. The Shiv Sena-BJP government of Maharashtra has been forcefully demanding the new airport in the state. In the recent elections, the Konkan region elected members of the Sena-BJP, unlike the rest of the state, and this might force the ruling alliance in the state to be sensitive to the region's demand.