Because the Navy was requested by the Indian Military govt to be the caretaker of the airport until such time as a civilian govt could take over, and the airport was subsequently used by the Indian Navy as a base during the Indo-China war of 1962, but failed to hand it over to Goa's Civilian Authorities after that and instead starting appropriating it and moving INS HANSA from Coimbatore to Dabolim in 1964 to establish a de-facto Naval base without authorisation.