Prime Minister Narendra Modi should have taken initiative to amicably resolve the ongoing Mahadayi inter-state river water-sharing dispute, AICC secretary in-charge of Goa Dinesh Gundu Rao said on Saturday.
Addressing a press conference in Panaji, his first since taking over as the All India Congress Committee in-charge of Goa, Rao said in India, the final arbiter is the Supreme Court, where the appeals by three states - Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra - against the Mahadayi Tribunal award is pending.
"The other mechanism would have been the Prime Minister calling everyone and resolving the problem. But he (Modi) did not do it," Rao said.
He also cited the lead taken by the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who, in 1971, had stepped into a similar inter-state dispute to resolve the Cauvery river water dispute.
Rao also said that it was up to each state involved in the dispute to press for its rights. "Each state will fight for its rights... Each state will have its own issues. Ultimately in a democracy, there is an arbitrator," he said.
The Congress party overseer for Goa also described the Mahadayi (Mhadei in Goa) issue as a "sensitive and an important" one and refrained from commenting in detail, stating that the matter was "sub judice".
Goa and Karnataka are battling out a two-decade-long dispute over the sharing of the Mahadayi (also called Mhadei in Goa) river water in the Supreme Court after both parties expressed reservations about the award by the Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal in 2018.
Goa has also opposed the diversion of water from the Mahadayi river basin through the Kalasa-Banduri project claiming it would cause “ecological devastation” in Goa.
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