From Sanjay Borkar in Margao for Daijiworld News Network - Goa

Margao, Jul 23: The Dabolim Airport Action Committee (DAAC) has demanded immediate scrapping of the proposed six-lane highway, which will pass through Pednem, Bardez, Tiswadi, Salcete and Canacona and have urged that government instead widen the existing NH 17.

DAAC spokesman Radharao Gracias has said that the alignment of flag-market at site by the PWD would cut a 150-square-metre-wide swath along the entire length of Goa and would entail demolition of an estimated twenty-three thousand houses and destruction of more than seventy thousand hectares of farmland.

The highway is being built on "Build, Own and transfer" (BOT) basis implying that vehicle-owners will have to pay for use of the highway. The public ought to be aware that the Mopa airport as well as the super highways are the brainchild of both the BJP and the Congress government which are determined to implement them, he has said further.