Goa govt will never compromise on Mahadayi issue: CM

Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday lamented over the destruction of Goa’s rivers due to casual dumping of garbage and waste, while also underlining his government’s commitment to not compromise on Mahadayi issue.

“We always say that the government will never compromise on Mahadayi. But when we say that, Goans are themselves destroying small rivers. We dump garbage from the house into the rivers,” Sawant said in his speech at an environment-related function in Panaji.

“If we say that we will not compromise on Mahadayi, it is also our responsibility to ensure that we care for the rest of the rivers in the state,” Sawant also said.

Sawant’s comment comes a couple of weeks after Union Minister for Mines and Coal and Karnataka MP Pralhad Joshi urged Sawant and Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa to negotiate an out-of-court settlement over sharing of Mahadayi river water. Sawant however refused to meet Yeddyurappa and the move fizzled out.

Mahadayi river is considered as a lifeline in the northern parts of the coastal state. It originates in Karnataka and meets the Arabian Sea in Panaji, while briefly flowing through the territory of Maharashtra.

Last year, the Mahadayi interstate waster dispute Tribunal which was hearing a dispute between Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra, for nearly two decades, over sharing of water from the river, in its award had allotted 13.42 TMC (including 3.9 TMC for diversion into the depleted Malaprabha river basin) from the Mahadayi river basin to Karnataka. Maharashtra has been allotted 1.33 TMC. Both governments have appealed to the Supreme Court against the provisions of the award.

The Goa government has also filed a disqualification petition in the Supreme Court subsequently, after the Goa Water Resources department claimed, that canals had been surreptitiously built in the Mahadayi basin in Karnataka to divert the river water to the deficit Malaprabha river basin.