Notwithstanding the groundswell of disappointment and shadesof anger of South Goa, against the relentless march of the government of Goa tofast track the building of the Mopa international airport, the truth is that acosy understanding has been arrived at, to do just that, between the state andcentre. Alarmingly this is being done, in an attempt to bypass the newprovisions of the land acquisition bill introduced in the winter session ofparliament, which requires a far greater consent of those whose lands andlivelihoods will be taken away.
While the benefits of having another international airportare non-negotiable, the jury should be completely out on two fronts. a) Of thebrute rigidity about having it at Mopa without a thought to the severalarguments against its location, including passenger connectivity to the rest ofGoa, b) Whether the government is genuinely serious about following theprocedures of the Land Acquisition Act (the historic one) and the LandAcquisition Bill 2012, in spirit, more than the letter, when announcements of“Section 6”, the final nail that seals the land acquisition process. Thegenuine and perhaps obvious answers to the first is that indeed the locationitself needs a serious re-look even without taking the Dabolim versus Moparoute.
The bigger worry is the second front. The government hasacquired close to 80 lakh square meters of land with every local shocked at thelack of dialogue and conversation as section 4, 5 and 6 of the land acquisitionact were imposed without explaining to them what was really going on. In thelatest salvo, 22 lakh square meters were acquired in a single shot in thevillages of Kasarwane, Varkhand and Chandel just outside of Mopa last week.Every inch of those lands are agricultural, with crops and cashew trees in fullbloom. This newspaper has relentlessly brought you the ground story at Mopafrom the people of Mopa and these are the hard facts. When Section 4 of theland acquisition act was notified in March 2003, making the intent to acquire,larger consultative process was not followed. Section 6 was declared in thefirst instance in March 2004, stating that there were no objections from peopleunder section 5 A. Locals still feel that these stages were heaped on rapidlywithout the villagers ever knowing what they were. This we believe iscompletely true. Even then, many whounderstood the ramifications of these acquisitions made it explicit that thevillages were one in not surrendering their land.
However what makes the sudden acquisition of 20 lakhs squaremetres of land, In January 2013 dubious is that this is the first acquisitionunder section 6 after the new land acquisition bill 2012 was cleared by thegroup of ministers and passed by parliament, which makes mandatory the consentof 80 per cent of people whose land is taken for private projects. In the caseof Public-Private Partnership projects, the bill makes mandatory obtaining ofconsent of 70 per cent of the people whose land will be for acquired. Thegovernment cannot take the cover that this legislation will not be applied withretrospective effect because land acquisition at Mopa is not retrospective butongoing and in the event of no specific cut off date applied the government isin huge haste to push the acquisition through without it coming into the ambitof the new land acquisition law. The final version of the new bill includes aclause stating that if the entire process of acquisition is not completed, thenresettlement and rehabilitation will have to be carried out under the terms ofthe new legislation.
However, information emanating from the Ministry of CivilAviation, whose secretary and joint secretary came to Goa at the fag end ofthis week, is that both the union and the state are pushing the airport bypaying lip service to resettlement. The visit was not for a steering committeemeeting of Mopa but a serious strategy meeting to overcome political and grassroot opposition to the project and push it through.
The Goan is fundamentally not against development andinfrastructure projects including new airports. But it will go on making a verystrong case on three grounds. Firstly, the feasibility of the Mopa airport interms on completely connectivity to the rest of Goa, in terms of impact ontourism and economy of the entire state, and not just north Goa, needs to bere-done in today’s scenario. Secondly, the connectivity issue is being ignoredwhen all feasibility reports made the Mopa airport conditional to fast paceconnectivity like highways and roads to South Goa. Connectivity of passengersto and from Mopa with other parts of Goa (and not Maharashtra) cannot bedelinked to the airport issue. Thirdly and all importantly, villagers of Mopaand surrounding villages cannot be bulldozed with the letter of the LandAcquisition Act when the spirit of genuine concern for their rehabilitation iscompletely missing.
