FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 2024
Team Herald
MARGAO: Giving a clarion call to Goans to join the fight in saving the River Mhadei, Save Mhadei Save Goa has accused the State government for deliberately not doing enough to ensure that the water is not diverted to the neighbouring State of Karnataka.
Abhijit Prabhudesai of Save Mhadei Save Goa used official documents of the State government, Central government and Karnataka government to talk about what are the real intentions behind the proposed diversion of the river.
He revealed that the Goa Government’s State Action Plan for Climate change has already confirmed that there will be shortage of water in the future and that this won’t be restricted to just Goa, but that there will be scarcity of water throughout the country, as predicted by top scientists.
Prabhudesai also had a message for the people who live in South Goa, in talukas of Sanguem, etc, in order to dispel the notion that the Mhadei issue will only affect North Goa and not the South.
He said that not only will the rivers and water plants in the South District have less water; Goa’s natural resources like Dudhsagar waterfall will also dry up.
Prabhudesai said farmers and those who are dependent on the river will suffer due to this as well as other related problems, like high salinity levels etc.
He lamented that the origin points for Goa’s river like the hills, etc, are already suffering and that in Karnataka, the sources of rivers have been overexploited and thus the neighbouring State is looking at Goa for its requirements.
He pointed out that the real enemy is not Karnataka, but the corporates.
He said the corporates are benefiting from the Mhadei diversion and the Goa government is complicit in this and that is why it had not presented the facts properly before the Mhadei tribunal so that there the obstacles to the diversion are removed.
What is being claimed is that the water diversion is for drinking requirements or for farmers is a farce, Prabhudesai added.
Here he showed documents to prove that the real purpose behind the diversion of Mhadei is to support the Karnataka government’s plan of building a 300-crore worth steel corridor in regions in the neighbouring State where steel and power plants will come up.
Prabhudesai said the water from Mhadei will be used for the functioning of these industrial units, which will lead to the increased transportation of coal in Goa that will further pollute the State and its rivers. He referred to the Sagarmala plans of the Central government and what the ministry of Railways submitted in the Supreme Court that the double tracking project in Goa is for coal and not for anything else as claimed by the government in the past.
