Goa villagers up in arms against new airport

DH News Service

The Mopa Vimantall Piditt Xetkari Samiti, an association of five villages in the region, said politicians and real estate speculators had got together to lobby for the new airport after they acquired large tracts of land there on the cheap.

“Many local politicians have vested interests in supporting the project after buying land around Mopa,” Sandip Kambli, the samiti’s secretary told journalists. He said hundreds of villagers who eked out a living from the fruit-bearing trees would now be displaced and turned into “landless refugees.”

Over 830 hectares is being acquired by the state for the greenfield airport project that was cleared by the Centre three years ago. Chief Minister Digambar Kamat said recently that the acquisition of land would be completed next month.

The village protest is the latest in a series of controversies that has dogged the new airport plan. With the tacit support of luxury resorts in South Goa who wanted operations at the Navy-controlled Dabolim airport to continue, Congress Minister Churchill Alemao managed to stall the Mopa airport plan for years till an assurance came that the Centre would allow both airports to operate.

Maharashtra’s plan to begin construction of the new greenfield airport at Chipi, Sindhdurga, which is less than 100 km from Mopa, is also a setback for Goa.