Team Herald
PANJIM: Congress’ former Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane on Tuesday stated that the deletion of the two clauses from the memorandum seeking formation of the tribunal under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act-1956 was necessary for constitution of the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal (MWDT) in 2010.
In a statement, Rane maintained that Congress is firm on its stand that no water can be diverted from one river basin to another and that Goa must maintain this stand forever.
The clarification comes a day after Chief Minister Dr Pramod Sawant had blamed the then Congress-led government for failing to object to basin utilisation of Mhadei water by the riparian States. He had said that the crucial issue of diversion of water from Mhadei basin to Malprabha basin was deleted from the original complaint.
Sawant had also said that the chief minister of ruling Congress and the chief minister of Maharashtra in April 2006 had mutually agreed to take up the dam on Haltar/Virdi nallah as a joint venture between both the States.
In a clarification, Rane said the Goa government had in July 2002 made an application for appointment of a Tribunal under Section-3 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act-1956 as amended. The request for appointment of Tribunal contained seven matters for adjudication. “However, Ministry of Water Resources vide various letters asked Goa to withdraw two clauses namely (iv) and (v), since the same pertained to basins other than Mhadei,” he said.
“However, since Central Government was not in a position to appoint a Tribunal without deletion of the said clauses, it was decided with advice of learned Advocate General to delete the clauses and take up the issues with the Tribunal itself. Hence, only after deletion of the clauses, Tribunal was constituted on November 6, 2010 under Sections 3 of ISRWD Act,” the Poriem MLA said.
Rane pointed out that as per the award, the issues relating to clauses (iv) and (v) were taken up by the Tribunal even with objections of Karnataka and due cognisance was given to the same.
Speaking on the Virdi Dam, Rane said the meeting of the Chief Ministers of Goa and Maharashtra decided to take up the work of the dam on River Virdi with a condition that to increase height of the dam and diverting extra water in Anjunem Dam and downstream riparian rights would be protected by releases from the dam.
“No diversion of water but utilisation in Mhadei basin only,” he said, adding that, however, as Maharashtra changed the alignment of the dam to Kattika Nallah still retaining the name Virdi Dam, the same was objected by Goa as no extra water could be diverted to Anjunem Dam, nor Maharashtra was ready to release for downstream uses in Goa.
Rane said the issue was discussed threadbare in the Tribunal as per the Award. “During the course of the hearing, Maharashtra wanted to divert some water to Tillari basin also. Though, Tribunal has not allowed Maharashtra to divert water, it has reduced the storage and has asked Maharashtra to get revised DPR approved and seek various permissions before resorting to gorge filling for which till then the State of Tribunal still continues,” he said.
