In a direct attack on the Opposition Congress and the Goa Forward party, Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant on Monday said that the Mhadei was sold during the Congress time.
He said that the Goa Forward party also never spoke opposing aversion when they were ruling as the Mhadei award was given in 2018, which is against Goa’s interest.
Sawant, addressing a press conference, said that it was only after he took over as CM he has pursued the case aggressively with Centre and the Supreme Court.
“I have taken up the case with Centre and only after I became CM did I take up issue aggressively filing SLP in Supreme Court, asking for salinity test and also will file contempt potion in Apex Court tomorrow,” he said.
Sawant stated that the Congress had sold Mhadei long when there was a communication in November 2006 between Union Water Resources Ministry and Goa Government regarding deletion of paragraphs 28(iv) and 28 (v) from the original complaint letter dated 9/7/2002 by the State of Goa as it contained references to basins other than the Mhadei basin.
“The then chief Minister, of the Congress Party in Power, consented in writing to deleting the said two paragraphs. Because of this the crucial issue of diversion of water from Mhadei basin to Malprabha basin was deleted from the original complaint. Thus the Congress government of the time, from the beginning failed to object to in basin utilisation of waters of Mahadayi by the riparian states,” he said.
The Chief Minister charged that similarly as regard to construction of minor irrigation dam at Virdi Maharashtra, as per the minutes of meeting held in Mumbai between the Hon’ble Chief Minister of Goa, i.e chief minister of ruling Congress Party and the chief minister of Maharashtra in April 2006, it was mutually agreed to take up the dam on Haltar /Virdi nallah as a joint venture between both the states.
Sawant said that the strong objection to the Mhadei diversion came in September 2012 for the first time when late Manohar Parrikar was the CM.
“The state of Goa strongly objected and opposed any proposal of outside the basin diversion of waters of Mhadei river basin without examining thoroughly and satisfying that the long term in basin needs of State of Goa are secured first,” he said.
Sawant said that the Mhadei award was submitted by the Tribunal to the Union of India on 14/8/2018.
“When this I took charge as the Chief Minister, and appointed new Advocate General, it was realised that the diversion of water from water to outside basin is required to be challenged as the same is against the interest of the State. Pertinently, the Water Resources Department was in the hands of Goa Forward Party who never took any initiative to challenge the Award,” he said.
He said that only after Goa Forward were out of the Government, Mhadei has been made a political issue.
“It was therefore decided by my Government to challenge the Award of the Tribunal by filing SLP. Accordingly, the SLP was filed in Supreme Court after a delay of 11 months. Because of the strong case made out by Goa, the delay was condoned by the honourable Supreme Court. State of Goa has strong objections for allotting 3.9 TMC for diversion from Mhadei basin to Malaprabha basin for alleged drinking water need of Hubli and Dharwad twin cities and enroute villages. The total yield of 188.06 TMC computed by the Tribunal is also objected by the State of Goa as it does not exclude the yield from Ganjem downstream, as in the said area, due to salinity of water and the topography the water is not capable of being utilized,” he said.
Sawant said this yield is required to be excluded while calculating the total yield of the Mhadei basin.
“A contempt petition is being filed before the Hon’ble Supreme court in the month of October 2020 along with all photographic evidence, pursuant to reports of diversion being carried out by State of Karnataka,” he said.
