MoEF snubs Goa govt over Kalasa-Bhandura project

In a snub to the Goa government, the Prakash Javadekar-led Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF) has rejected its demand for withdrawal of a letter giving a nod to the Kalasa-Bhandura project in Karnataka.

In a letter to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, Javadekar has, however, agreed to form a committee, to go into the demands made by an all-party delegation led by Sawant, which had met the Union Minister earlier this month and pleaded with him to withdraw his ministry’s consent to the project.

“This is in reference to your Memorandum dated November 4 regarding the Kalasa-Bhandara project of Karnataka. It is informed through your memorandum that the proposal submitted to the Ministry is more than a drinking water project and thus requires to be reviewed in detail by the Ministry,” Javadekar said in his letter to Sawant on Monday. The letter was released to the media on Tuesday.

“In this connection, a committee is being constituted to look into the issues raised in detail,” Javadekar has also said.

Sawant had led an all-party delegation to meet Javadekar on November 4, seeking a withdrawal of the Ministry’s green nod to the project, by arguing that the Rs. 841 crore Kalasa-Bhandura project across the banks of the Mahadayi river, would devastate Goa’s ecology.

Sawant’s leadership credentials are being questioned by the Opposition for being unable to stop the Kalasa-Bhandara project, despite the three government involved — Karnataka, Goa and the Centre — are headed by the BJP. The Chief Minister in the past had also threatened to go to the National Green Tribunal to challenge the MoEF nod to the project.

The Mhadei river originates in Karnataka and meets the Arabian Sea in Panaji in Goa, while briefly flowing through Maharashtra.

An inter-state water disputes tribunal, set up by the central government, after hearing the over two-decade-old dispute between Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra over Mhadei river water sharing, had, in its award in August 2018, allotted 13.42 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) from the Mhadei river basin (including 3.9 TMC for diversion into the depleted Malaprabha river basin) to Karnataka. Maharashtra has been allotted 1.33 TMC.