The Rane govt surrendered Mhadei water to Karnataka & Maharashtra twice

l Goa’s fight with Karnataka and Maharashtra for its rightful share of Mhadei water, severely affected by the earlier Cong govt 

l Both neighbouring States are using those documents of ‘surrender’ to dent Goa’s arguments for unrestricted water to meet their needs

SUJAY GUPTA

sujay@herald-goa.com

PANJIM: The Goa government may have temporarily won the single battle of preventing Karnataka diverting Mhadei water meant for Goa to the Malaprabha basin in Karnataka, but it will be a long legal struggle to win the war to get Goa’s rightful share of water.

That is because the Congress government of Pratapsingh Raoji Rane and the successive Digambar Kamat government had surrendered Goa’s position first to Maharashtra and then to Karnataka in 2006 and 2007, a stand which has impacted the present Goa government’s legal team severely.

Herald has access to several exhibits of documents from the Mhadei files of the government to construct a pattern by which the Goa government has given up its vantage points of argument, regarding its water share and needs, due to which Maharashtra and Karnataka have taken full advantage. As the dispute over Mhadei water rages, the legal challenge to overcome these decisions taken unilaterally, without application of mind, is being felt by this government.

SURRENDER TO MAHARASHTRA: So what did Mr Rane, the then Goa CM do for this situation to emerge? In 2006, the government and the civil society in Goa were united in believing that Goa’s needs would be severely short-changed if the Virdi dam came up on the Maharashtra end of the Mhadei basin. In the middle of this the Goa Chief Minister, without taking his Cabinet into confidence, royally wished away Goa’s claims in the meeting of Chief Ministers of the two States on 26/4/2006. This surrender was actually never spoken of nor raised in Goa either by the Opposition or the media. It actually was noticed in 2012, when the Parrikar government took over, and filed an Intervening Application in the Karnataka matter after filing a settlement claim raising issues concerning Goa. In its reply to the IA, Karnataka made a case for continuing water diversion to Hubli and Dharwad, on the ground that Goa had already permitted Maharashtra to construct the Virdi dam for irrigation, which was of lower priority than Karnataka’s need for drinking water for Hubli and Dharwad.

In Para 38 of page 27 of Karnataka’s reply to Goa’s IA before the Mhadei water disputes tribunal, Karnataka stated, “The State of Goa had itself permitted the state of Maharashtra to construct the Virdi project in Maharashtra as adverted to in the complaint of the state of Maharashtra at para 5(a), which reads as follows: “Maharashtra State having an equitable 

share in the water of the Mandovi river has proposed Virdi project and several other projects within its territory. The State of Goa in the CM’s meeting of the two States on 26/4/2006, permitted the State of Maharashtra to construct Virdi project”

SURRENDER TO KARNATAKA: A little over eight months later, on January 10, 2007, the Commissioner and Secretary Water Resources Raajiv Yaduvanshi, in the Rane government, sent a five line letter to the ministry of Water Resources surrendering two of Goa’s biggest points of argument to prevent Karnataka from diverting the Mhadei waters. The two points originally contained in Para 28 iv and v of the request letter of the Goa government to appoint a water disputes tribunal, dated 9/7/2002 (written by Goa’s Water Resources Secretary to the Union Water resources Secretary)  that were given away by Mr Yaduvanshi were:

a) Para 28 (iv): Goa’s right to adjudicate whether Karnataka cannot meet Hubli/ Dharwad water supply requirements from locally available water resources

b) Para 28 (v): Goa’s right to adjudicate whether there are no other alternative sources of water such as Kali, Bhedti and Ghataprabha from where Karnataka could draw water.

A copy of what Herald calls the “surrender document” is being carried with this story. Yaduvanshi in his letter (10/1/2007) to Secretary Ministry of Water resources wrote “After due consideration…by the government of Goa, I am directed to inform you that Goa’s request for appointment of tribunal… may be processed by deleting para 28 (iv) & 28 (v).”

WHAT WAS THE FALLOUT: The fallout was clear. Karnataka used this letter to shut Goa out of raising these contentious and crucial points which would have allowed Goa to effectively nullify Karnataka’s reason for diverting 7.56 tmc of water from outside the basin, affecting Goa’s water needs. Goa would have argued that Karnataka doesn’t need Mhadei water for drinking since it has locally available water resources.

Instead, Karnataka argued before the tribunal as thus, “It is not open to the State of Goa to question the justification of diversion of 7.56 tmc of water to meet the drinking water supplies of Hubli-Dharwad towns”, because Goa had officially given up those points of argument.

The truth of history is always in the fine print. It is in the fine print that the hand of traitors and heroes are stamped. It’s clear that Goa’s interests were given up by the highest custodian of its interests, it’s Chief Minister, on April 26, 2006 and January 10, 2007.

(This Sunday: A Special report on how Goa gave up Mhadei for six years)