Mopa airport project gets green nod from Centre.

The proposed Mopa airport finally received the much awaited environmental clearance from the central government. The decision in this regard was taken at a meeting held in New Delhi recently by the Union ministry of environment, forests and climate change.

The meeting was chaired by MoEFCC Minister Prakash Jawadekar.

The meeting was attended by Goa Chief Secretary R K Srivastava, who is also the principal secretary of civil aviation, and civil aviation director S Shanbogue.

The meeting, which started on Tuesday morning and lasted for almost three hours, deliberated upon all the issues and objections raised by several organisations.

“A serious hurdle has been cleared with this granting of environmental clearance. Now Mopa is not too far,” Chief Minister Laxmikant Parsekar remarked after the decision taken by the MoEFCC, adding that the proposal of request for proposals would be put before the state cabinet for approval in this week or the next.

The MoEFCC had deferred its decision on granting environment clearance to the greenfield international airport project at Mopa following a representation by an NGO from Margao, seeking directions to the state government to conduct a proper and factual study as it had alleged that the environment impact assessment conducted some time back was faulty.

After that the civil aviation department had answered all the queries raised by the central authorities.

Parsekar said the civil aviation department gave satisfactory replies to all the queries raised by the ministry officials and other functionaries of MoEFCC besides the representation filed by the Margao-based NGO.

The initial proposal for the Mopa airport had been cleared by the central government in March 2001, almost 14 years ago. But the project has been opposed by some political leaders and NGOs from South Goa.

On the other hand, the people of Pernem taluka look at the Mopa airport as a stepping stone for tourism development along the coastline of the border taluka.

Parsekar disclosed that the government would seek proposal from the selected companies within 90 days after the cabinet approval and later final decision regarding the developer would be taken, hoping that the work order would be issued by April 2016 and the actual work should begin by July 2016.

The proposed Mopa airport will be equipped to handle around 44 lakh passengers annually in the first phase and after the completion of final phase it will be capable of handling not less than 1.30 crore passengers.


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