The Hindu

BANGALORE, Aug 26: 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 Basavaraj Bommai said the Union Water Resources Ministry, headed by Saifuddin Soz, had 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 had 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 Union Government 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.

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

“We had given Rs. 20 lakh to NERI for studying the project.” The institute which carried out a study for nearly 18 months had dismissed all concerns. Subsequently, the Goa Government approached the Supreme Court which refused to grant a stay on the project.

The Centre had not been following a uniform policy with regard to States. It had 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.

Unlike the Hogenakkal project, there was no border dispute involved in the Kalasa-Banduri nala project and the State was utilising a small part of its share for drinking water purposes, the Minister added
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