PANJIM: Water Resources Minister Subhash Shirodkar has expressed his confidence that the Supreme Court will pass a favourable order on Special Leave petition (SLP) on Mhadei water diversion filed by the Goa government.
The Supreme Court has listed Goa’s SLP for next hearing on November 29.
“Hopefully, it (SLP) will come up for hearing on either November 28 or 29. We are confident that the order would be in our favour. I have been saying this from day one. I am not saying for the sake of saying. Technically our side is too strong,” he told O Heraldo hours before the Supreme Court cause list was released.
In July this year, the Supreme Court admitted the Goa government’s special leave petition challenging the award passed by the Mhadei Water Disputes Tribunal.
The Apex Court, earlier, in an interim order, had directed the Centre to notify the tribunal’s award dated August 14, 2018.
Reacting to Karnataka’s Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the Kalasa-Bhanduri water diversion project, Shirodkar said, “We are going to appoint an agency which will investigate those sites and give us a report within six months. State government agencies or Central government agencies are eligible to conduct the study. Time-frame for submitting the report is six months,” he said.
To another question, the WRD Minister said that the maintenance work of Tillari irrigation dam will be completed December 20 this year.
