Mahadayi project: Goa changes tack, to file objections with Central ministries

The Goa government will file objections with key Central ministries against Karnataka proceeding with work on Kalasa-Banduri project, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has said.

“We will file written objections with Central ministries such as, the Union Ministry for Environment and Forests, Ministry for Jal Shakti and other ministries and urge them not to give permission to Karnataka for construction (of Kalasa-Banduri project),” Sawant told reporters here on Tuesday. He said the objections would be filed within two or three days.

On Monday, the Supreme Court refrained from accepting the Goa government’s plea for a stay on Karnataka’s efforts to obtain the required permissions from Central ministries for taking ahead of the Kalasa-Banduri project.

The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti last week issued a notification on the award of Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal, pronounced in August 2018, which allowed Karnataka to divert water from Mahadayi river for Kalsa-Banduri project.

The Sawant-led dispensation has come under severe criticism from opposition parties for “not doing enough” to project Goa’s interests in the ongoing inter-state dispute with Karnataka over the waters of the Mahadayi river.

“It is the job of the opposition to oppose. They will continue to do it,” Sawant said.

Goa and Karnataka are battling out a two-decade-long dispute over the sharing of the Mahadayi river 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 claiming it would cause “ecological devastation” in Goa.

Sawant said that the state government would bring to the Supreme Court’s notice “violations” of its order by Karnataka in the Kalasa-Banduri project.

A special leave petition filed by Goa over the award given by Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal will be heard in July.

“We have already started preparing to present our case before SC in July. We will bring to the court’s notice violations by Karnataka at proposed project site across Mahadayi river,” Sawant told reporters in Panaji. Through its order in 2014, the apex court had stayed any work on the proposed dam site.