JOIN USThe Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal on Wednesday concluded its hearing of arguments from riparian states and reserved its final order.
The tribulal, headed by Justice J M Panchal, started the hearing in 2011 and is expected to deliver its final order by August 20 as its term will be completed by then.
However, the tribunal has also asked all riparian states Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa to furnish written submissions, if they wanted to bring any issue to the notice of the tribunal in coming days.
Though the Central Water Commission had earlier said that the total availability of water in Mahadayi valley was 199 tmc feet in a year, the tribunal may go for further study as the Goa government challenged the CWC report. According to Goa, the total availability of water was just 113 tmc feet per annum.
While Karnataka sought 21.98 tmc feet of water per year as its share including 7.56 tmc feet of water to supply drinking water to Hubli-Dharwad and surrounding areas, Maharashtra sought 6.34 tmc feet of water.
Opposing any diversion of river water, Goa claimed that total 172 tmc feet of water was needed to maintain natural course in Mahadayi river but the availability was very less than required.