Mhadei issue: No water can be diverted from one river basin to another, says ex-CM Rane

Goa must be firm on the current Mhadei issue that no water can be diverted from one river basin to another, said former Chief Minister Pratapsingh Rane on Tuesday.

"On current Mhadei issue, we must be firm on our stand, as no water can be diverted from one river basin to another. Goa must maintain this stand forever," Rane said in a statement.

"Goa in July 2002 made an application for appointment of Tribunal under Section-3 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act-1956 as amended. The request for appointment of Tribunal contained 7 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," Rane further wrote.

The Congress MLA further said that since Central Government was not in a position to appoint a Tribunal without deletion of the 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 6th November 2010 under Sections 3 of ISRWD Act. It may be noted that as per the Award, the issues relating to clause (iv) and (v) were taken up by the Tribunal even with objections of Karnataka and due cognisance was given to the same," he wrote further.

Speaking on the subject of the Virdi Dam, he wrote that a meeting of Chief Ministers of Goa and Maharashtra was held and it was decided to take up the work of Virdi Dam on River Virdi with the following conditions; wherein increasing the height of the Dam and diverting extra water in Anjunem Dam and downstream riparian rights would be protected by releases from the Dam. There would be no diversion of water but utilisation in the Mhadei basin.

"However, as Maharastra changed the alignment of the Dam to Kattika Nallah still retaining the name Virdi Dam. Goa had objected to the same as no extra water could be diverted to Anjunem Dam, nor Maharashtra was ready to release for downstream uses in Goa," he wrote.

"Though Tribunal has not allowed Maharashtra to divert water, it has reduced the storage and has asked Maharashtra to get the revised DPR approved and seek various permissions before resorting to gorge filling for which till then the State of Tribunal still continues," he added.

( With inputs from ANI )