BENGALURU: Water Resources Minister Govind Karjol on Monday stressed that Goa cannot prevent the Karnataka government from implementing the Mahadayi drinking water project on Kalasa-Banduri canals as the Mahadayi tribunal has awarded the state’s share of water and it has been cleared by the Central Water Commission (CWC).
“Since the tribunal has given the award, none should object to it. The Goa government should realise that we are in a federal system. Since the central government has cleared the project and also notified it in the gazette, we will call for tenders in a month to execute the project. We don’t need anybody’s permission to implement it,” he said in Bengaluru on Monday. The project, which aims to supply drinking water to the Hubballi-Dharwad region by utilising 3.9 tmcft of water, will be implemented within a year, he asserted.
Terming the Congress protest in Hubballi for the implementation of the Kalasa Banduri project as “ridiculous”, he said the party did not take the initiative during the Siddaramaiah-led government in 2012-18. “People had staged a struggle for 1,080 days then, but except for sending those who were fighting for the project to jail, the Congress government did nothing,” he said.
When BS Yediyurappa was chief minister and KS Eshwarappa water resources minister, the bhoomi pooja was performed to build the link canal. But the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government built safety walls for the canals, he said. He detailed the efforts put in to get the project cleared from the Centre since 1987 when the then Karnataka government proposed to implement a hydro-electric project, but dropped it after objections from the Goa government. But on March 16, 1989, then chief minister SR Bommai met his Goa counterpart and proposed the project again, he explained.
“On April 30, 2002, the NDA government, led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, gave the approval in principle, but the then Congress government, led by SM Krishna, slept over it and did not act for five months. Goa approached the Centre with a complaint on July 9, 2002, under Section 3 of the Inter State River Water Dispute Act for the constitution of the tribunal and withdrawal of the ‘in principle’ clearance. But Goa managed to get a stay for the project from the Centre. During 2004 and 2014, the UPA government did not take the initiative to clear the stay in favour of Karnataka following which the tribunal was set up in 2010,” he said.
He alleged that then UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi, during her poll campaign in Goa, had said that not a drop of Mahadayi water would be given to Karnataka.
AAP: CLEARANCE TIMED appropriately
The Aam Aadmi Party said the BJP has clearly fallen short of its grandiose claims regarding the efficacy of their ‘double engine government’. The Central Water Commission clearance was timed appropriately ahead of the Assembly election in Karnataka. The BJP, therefore, ought not to gloat on the issue and instead make sincere efforts to provide drinking water to Hubballi-Dharwad region.