Date:26/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/26/stories/2008082654940600.htm

Karnataka

Karnataka opposes Goa’s plea on Kalasa-Banduri project

Special Correspondent

BANGALORE: Karnataka has opposed Goa’s appeal to the Union Government to set up a tribunal to study the Kalasa-Banduri nala project for diversion of the Mahadayi waters to meet the drinking water needs of Hubli-Dharwad and other districts of north Karnataka.

Addressing presspersons here on Monday, Minister for Water Resources (Major and Medium Irrigation) Basavaraj Bommai said the Union Water Resources Ministry, headed by Saifuddin Soz, forwarded a letter from the Goa Government to Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa seeking Karnataka’s views on Goa’s demand.

The Centre should have rejected the request instead of forwarding the letter to the State, Mr. Bommai said and termed the Centre’s action as “totally unjustified.”

Mr. Yeddyurappa urged the Centre to allow the State to go ahead with the project, and if necessary an all-party delegation would be taken to Delhi in the first week of next month to prevail upon the Centre to clear it, the Minister said.

Out of the 200 tmcft of water flowing into the sea from the Mahadayi, Mr. Bommai said 45 tmcft had been awarded to the State as its share.

The project envisages diversion of 7.56 tmcft of water from the Mahadayi to meet the drinking water requirements of Hubli-Dharwad and some other districts of north Karnataka, Mr. Bommai said and termed Goa’s objections to the project as baseless.

Unnecessry objections

However, successive governments in Goa had been raising unnecessary objections to the project, and these include environmental concerns, which had been termed as baseless by the National Energy Research Institute.

The Centre had not been following a uniform policy with regard to States. It cleared Tamil Nadu’s Hogenakkal drinking water project despite Karnataka’s objection to it. The State had been saying that the boundary between the two States needed to be first determined to know whether Hogenakkal came within Karnataka or Tamil Nadu, and whether Tamil Nadu was actually utilising its share of waters, he said.