SC decision on Goa's Mopa airport could push deadline: Govt

The suspension of environmental clearance granted to the greenfield airport at Mopa in north Goa by the Supreme Court will lead to the project missing its 2020 first phase deadline, a senior official said Tuesday.

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant Tuesday held a high level meeting of state bureaucrats and officials of GMR Goa International Airport Limited (GGIAL), which won the bid for the airport under the build-own-operate and transfer (BOOT) scheme.

A Goa government spokesperson told reporters that Director Civil Aviation Suresh Shanbhogue apprised the Chief Minister that "temporary suspension of EC (environment clearance) may delay the project time line especially looking at the monsoon which will begin from June".

The first phase of the project was expected to be commissioned in 2020, for which the work was underway on a war footing, he said.

TheSC last Friday suspended the environmental clearance granted to the Mopa airport and directed theExpert Appraisal Committee (EAC) to revisit the decision in light of its impact on ecology.

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A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta said the EAC, as an expert body, abdicated its role and function by taking into account circumstances which were extraneous to the exercise of its power and failed to notice facets of the environment that were crucial to its decision making.

The meeting called by CM Sawant was attended by Govind Jaiswal, Secretary, Environment, R V Sheshan, CEO, GMR Goa International Airport Limited (GGIAL) apart from Shanbhogue.

During the meeting, Sawant said he will personally review the matter on a regular basis, so that all necessary steps are taken as per the directions of the Supreme Court to enable the work on it to be restarted.