BANGALORE
“An all-party delegation will soon call on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and seek his intervention again for resolving the inter-state water dispute with Goa,” Chief Minister Siddaramaiah told reporters.
The decision to meet Modi was taken at an all-party meeting here, in which central ministers D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Ananth Kumar participated along with other BJP and Congress lawmakers from parliament and the assembly.
The assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution, seeking the prime minister’s intervention amid protests by the opposition members and people, especially farmers in the most-affected districts.
“We will request the prime minister’s office to fix a date soon to meet Modi for apprising him of the grim situation in the affected districts and seek his help to resolve the issue,” Siddaramaiah said after the hour-long meeting.
Karnataka wants to build barrages across Kalasa-Banduri tributaries of the Mhadei river to divert 7.6 thousand million cubic feet of water for supplying drinking water to four districts “ Gadag, Hubbali-Dharwad, Belagavi and Bagalkote “ through the
Malaprabha river.
As the 77-km-long Mahadayi river flows to Goa from Karnataka into the Arabian Sea, the former, which has 52-km of its length, has been objecting over sharing its water, calling it a lifeline for
its people.
But Karnataka sought to disprove its stand.
“We have been trying to convince Goa over the years that our project does not affect the river flow into its state, as about 200 tmc feet of water is going into the Arabian Sea every year unutilised,” Siddaramaiah said.
