State needs a strong mass movement to protect the Mhadei against Karnataka
The House committee on the Mhadei water dispute met on Wednesday, almost two years after the last meeting. The 12-member panel constituted by the Goa assembly to deal with the Mhadei matter was constituted in January 2023. The first meeting was held on February 8, 2023. The positive development in Wednesday’s meeting was that members cutting across party lines decided to visit the Kalasa and Banduri project sites in Karnataka to inspect the work carried out by the neighbouring state for diverting water from the Mhadei basin to the Malaprabha basin.
It is to be seen if the Karnataka government grants permission for the visit. Water Resources Minister Subhash Shirodkar, who heads the House panel, said that he will request Speaker Ramesh Tawadkar to write to his Karnataka counterpart seeking permission.
Even as an environmentalist who is familiar with the Mhadei region topography has said that work is on to divert water from Mhadei, the government remains in denial mode. The Minister said that currently no new works have been undertaken by Karnataka at the project sites.
The meeting saw a lot of discussion on the ground reality, the government’s approach towards protecting Mhadei, and the status of the legal cases. “We have been fighting the Mhadei diversion on three fronts: the Supreme Court, at the political level, and before the Mhadei PRAWAH Authority. We are quite confident that Goa has a strong case before the Supreme Court,” Shirodkar said after the meeting.
The opposition was also critical of the government for holding this meeting nearly two years after the first. One opposition member who was very critical said that the government continues to have a casual approach to stopping Karnataka from diverting the Mhadei waters. He also said that, as per official information, the government has spent more than Rs 25 crore since 2020 to fight Goa’s case in the Supreme Court. It was also stated that, though Karnataka is a Congress-ruled state, their Chief Minister held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking permission to divert Mhadei waters for drinking water purposes. On this, the opposition members criticised the government, questioning why no delegation has called on the PM to press Goa’s case.
Politically, according to observers, Goa is weak. Over the decades, Goa has not gotten support in cases of disputes with other states. The major reason is that Goa has just two MPs. Karnataka, being a big state, has many, which matters for national parties. In the past, our politicians have had to go by the diktats of their high commands. For example, in 2017, just before Karnataka assembly polls, the Goa chief minister wrote to the neighbouring state’s party president agreeing to consider Karnataka’s demand for drinking water on “humanitarian grounds”. For nearly two decades, Goa has seen some of its leaders playing with people’s sentiments, some holding the party’s interests above the state’s. Politicians are also aware that Mhadei is not an all-Goa issue during elections. It never became an emotive issue. Even in North Goa, it doesn’t evoke much response, political or otherwise.
It’s the environmentalists who have exposed Karnataka’s activities over the years. Goa needs more greens and people participation to put pressure on the government to take strong action in the state’s interest. Hopefully the House committee will have more meetings and come up with strategies to protect Goa’s lifeline.
