‘NON-NEGOTIABLE’. We are not prepared for an inter-state meeting to negotiate if we will allow Mhadei waters to be unfairly diverted out of our basin at the cost of long term depletion of mother Mhadei in Goa. Where is the negotiation here?
What do we negotiate? Do we negotiate if we are willing to allow our mother to be diverted to other states, in a manner which is completely unfair. Do we negotiate after the centre set up the Mhadei Water Disputes Tribunal to adjudicate between Karnataka and Maharashtra way back in 2006, after inter-state negotiation failed? And why do we negotiate when our coherent arguments before the Mhadei Water Disputes Tribunal has been driven home decisively with very high chances of adjudication in Goa’s favour.
The Chief Minister has said that basic courtesies demand that he should attend meeting of Chief Ministers if it has been requested by the Tribunal. We are simply telling our Chief Minister, that the courtesy he will extend to the other two Chief Ministers should be restricted to attending the meeting alone. Thus far and no further. Any other courtesy which leads to an additional drop of water from the Mhadei going away from Goa will not be accepted.
The Mhadei Water Disputes Tribunal, as is the norm in all disputes, has asked the three states for a one last attempt at arriving a consensus solution to the water sharing dispute to help the Tribunal. Goa has rightly agreed not to disrespect the Tribunal which has actually been supportive of Goa’s stand on the issue. But when a discussion takes place between the three states, especially Karnataka, Goa has very little to fall back on, in order to trust Karnataka.
The former Advocate General of Goa Atmaram Nadkarni, who is arguing Goa’s case in the Tribunal, has on several occasions pointed Karnataka’s scant disregard even for Supreme Court directions such as the one preventing Karnataka from going ahead with Inter-state projects without the concurrence of the Planning Commission and central authorities. Karnataka has affected the fragile Western Ghats by constructing canals cutting through the ghats. And this is an environmental damage which should have been escalated as a separate issue by environmentalists.
Above all, any discussion among the three states, must take into the account the history of the attempts at conflict resolution to get a greater sense of which way this fresh attempt will head. Do remember the Karnataka Chief Minister will come to the table with the same mandate as the Goa Chief Minister – give nothing. No CM can dare go back to their people having conceded anything, if he wants to stay politically relevant.
The Mhadei Bachao Abhiyan, which was called for the all-party meeting on Monday, inspite of it not being a political entity has actually made more important talking points in its memorandum to the Chief Minister than political parties. We summarise them and acknowledge that they are completely in the same line of argument and documents correctly the history of conflict resolution among Goa and Karnataka over Mhadei waters. We quote from the memorandum of MBA:
– Both Karnataka and Maharashtra were surveying, planning and undertaking projects as they wanted in Mahadayi basin. Even when case was being argued before MWDT, Karnataka had drawn plans for diversion of Dudhsagar waters. It was revealed in the assembly in August 2014 that Karnataka had envisaged four dams on the upstream of Khandepar river – Katla Dam, Palna Dam, Diggi-Mara Dam and Diggi-Bondeli Dam to divert water to Supa reservoir.
– After giving a considerable thought to failure of negotiations since 1980s Government of Goa had made a request in July 2002 to constitute the tribunal. It had still sufficient time till the constitution of tribunal till Nov. 16, 2010. Goa government had included in the request issues like the assessment of available utilisable water resources in the basin at various points and allocation of this water to the three basin States keeping in view priority of the use of water within basin as also to decide the machinery to implement the decision of the tribunal etc.
– Government of Goa had done a lot of correspondence since 1980s with governments of Karnataka (also sporadically with Government of Maharashtra) without getting any assurance of protection of Goa’s water security. Just to make sure that Goa has indeed given up hopes of ‘negotiated settlement’ central government took the lead in 2006 to convene an interstate meeting.
– Government of Goa was also disappointed with outcome of inter-State meeting on 4.4.2006 at the level of Chief Ministers of the States of Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra meeting with Hon’ble Union Minister for Water Resources. Actually from that point onwards no further thought should have been given to the idea of negotiated settlement because nothing had changed on ground.
It is with the weight of this history of betrayal that Chief Minister Parsekar is headed to for meeting of the three CMs. He must not let this weigh him down when he has to argue that Goa’s stand is consistent with what it has argued at the tribunal. There can be no other negotiation. And that’s final.
