With the heat and dust of the most bitterly fought Karnataka’s Legislative Assembly elections gradually subsiding and a new JD (S)-Congress combined government already in place in the state, all attention, in both Karnataka as well as Goa, is not firmly focused on the verdict in the Mhadei water diversion case, which is expected to be delivered by the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal (MWDT) by August end. While Karnataka is eagerly awaiting to take forward its ambitious project of diverting waters from Kalsa and Bhandura tributaries of the Mhadei/Mandovi river to Malaprabha basin, Goa is hopefully expecting a favorable MWDT order in putting a complete end to the Karnataka’s dream-plan.
The Mhadei river originates from Jambotighat, about 10km north-east of Sonasagar in Khanapur taluka of Karnataka’s Belgaum district, and flows in a general westerly direction, entering Goa at Ganjem village in Sattari taluka of North Goa district. It is joined by a number of streams along the way, growing in volume to become Mandovi, one of Goa’s two major rivers, before emptying itself into the Arabian Sea at Panjim. The larger Mhadei/Mandovi river basin, with its web of tributaries and distributaries, nourishes, besides Goa, parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka.
The total length of the main river is 87km, out of which the initial 35km is in Karnataka and the remaining 52km is in Goa. The Mhadei/Mandovi being an inter-state river basin, drains areas in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. The river drains a total area of 2,032sq km, of which 375sq km are in Karnataka, 77 sq km in Maharashtra and the balance 1,580 sq km, in Goa, occupying 42 70 per cent of the total area of the state. As most of the Goa’s 11 rivers hold salt water; the sweet-water Mandovi is crucial to the state’s water security, ecology, and as an important source of its staple diet of fish.
Since the Mhadei basin is located in the Western Ghats, a biodiversity hotspot, it supports hitherto an unexplored flora and fauna. As per a report of the Water Resource Development Department, there are 30 villages besides four wildlife sanctuaries in and along the Mhadei/Mandovi basin, with areas being the home for several species of animals, reptiles, birds and bats, including the rare Wroughton’s free-tailed bats. The ecology of the Mhadei basin is already very fragile on account of massive deforestation and indiscriminate quarrying activities in Khanapur taluka of Karnataka, in the last few decades.
The dispute between Goa and Karnataka began since the early 1990s, as Karnataka designed a chain of dams and canals to divert waters from Kalsa and Bhandura tributaries of the Mhadei/Mandovi River to the basin of Malaprabha, a 304 km tributary of Krishna river, citing the endemic water scarcity in the northern district of Belgaum, Dharwad, Gadag and Bagalkot. The Karnataka government is hell-bent in proceeding with its plan, and has already built huge canals in thickly vegetated forest areas and constructed dams across Kalsa and Bhandura tributaries.
It is now nearly two decades that Goa has been opposing Karnataka’s project as being unauthorised and ecologically destructive inter-basin diversion of water from the Mhadei basin to the Malaprabha basin. After repeated attempts at negotiation failed, Goa approached the Supreme Court and sought the setting up of a Tribunal to adjudicate the dispute. Thus, the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal (MWDT) was set up on November 16, 2010, as provided under Section 4 of the Interstate River Water dispute act of 1956. Acting on Goa’s challenge, the SC has also stopped the work of construction of Karnataka’s canals and dams, recently.
Goa has been vehemently arguing for the needs of the local population along the river’s natural park, which was an outcome of tectonic events. Ingress of saltwater in an otherwise monsoon dependent river will kill the state’s green belt and mangroves, alter the relationship between the population and the land, and disturb its ecological and environmental balance. Karnataka, on the other hand, insists that it needs water for drinking, irrigation and power generation. But Goa says it is water-deficient itself, which has affected its agriculture. In recent years, Karnataka has pegged its demand for Mhadei water at 7.56 thousand million cubic feet (tmcf) to meet the “drinking requirement” of farmers in North Karnataka. But Goa has raised concerns that Karnataka would stock more water in its reservoirs and channel it to the Malaprabha basin, to be used for irrigation.
According to environmentalists, diversion of waters from the Kalsa and Bhandura tributaries of the Mhadei River to Malaprabha basin, besides disturbing the existing general ecological balance along the entire river’s path, will also have adverse effect on salinity levels of the water of Mandovi river in Goa, endangering water transport in the state and affect social aspect of the region. At present, the water table of Mandovi River has already been reduced substantially. Experts are of the firm opinion that the Mhadei catchment in Karnataka must be left undisturbed or else there would be a drastic change in the ecology, the flora and the fauna of Mhadei/Mandovi basin.
Goa, however, is unlikely to get an entirely favourable verdict on its side, from the green tribunal, in the Mhadei water diversion case against Karnataka, as over 82 per cent of the work on the subject has already been completed since Karnataka received a NOC for the same from the Goa govt, nearly two decades ago. Indeed, on the strength of the NOC, Karnataka has invested huge funds in construction of canals and 8 dams across Kalsa and Bhandura tributaries of the Mhadei, for diversion of water to Malaprabha basin, which fact the MWDT will definitely take into consideration in the judgement and order in the case.
(The writer is a freelance journalist)
