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Kamat calls for one-day Assembly session on issue

the goan I network

PANAJI

Leader of the Opposition Digambar Kamat on Friday demanded that the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant hold a special one day Assembly session to exclusively discuss the issue of Karnataka being given a green nod to the 13.42 thousand million cubic feet (TMC) Khalasa-Bhandura drinking water project, which is expected to divert around 3.9 TMC of water from the Mhadei river.

The LoP said that the fact that the Khalasa-Bhandura project had been given a green nod was “most damaging” for Goa as the Mhadei was the lifeline of Goa.

Contrary to the stand of the Goa Pradesh Congress Committee chief Girish Chodankar who had asked for the resignation of the Chief Minister on grounds of the project getting a nod, the LoP said that he gave the CM the benefit of the doubt that perhaps the CM did not know in advance about the decision.

However, Kamat said that he expected the CM to lead an all-party delegation to meet the Prime Minister on the issue at the earliest. “In 2009 when I was the CM, I had led an all-party delegation to meet then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and ask him to set up a tribunal to hear Goa’s Mhadei woes, as diverting any water is injustice to the Goan people. I expect the CM to do the same now, and take up the matter with the PM,” Kamat said, addressing the media at the Congress house.

Porvorim MLA backs Kamat’s decision
PANAJI: Porvorim MLA Rohan Khaunte, a former minister in the Sawant-led government for four months, on Friday slammed the State government for allowing the potential diversion of the water of the Mhadei into Karnataka.
Khaunte backed the LoP’s demands for a special Assembly session and said that an Assembly session had to be called to discuss the all-important Mhadei issue. He further said that if the issue was not taken up in all seriousness, the Goa Legislative Assembly appeared to be just a joke as not even one of the issues taken up in the Assembly, and promises made by the CM had been followed up in seriousness.
“Doesn’t the CM have the right connections in Delhi? Even Vishwajit Rane meets Amit Shah more often than the CM. If the CM doesn’t have the connections, let him take Rane’s help to sort out this Mhadei issue,” Khaunte said.
Meanwhile, Khaunte expressed that Union Minister Prakash Javadekar deleting his tweet that it was his cabinet colleague Pralad Joshi who had intervened for the Khalasa-Bhandura project to get a green nod did not undo the meaning behind the tweet - that there had been political interference in the decision. “Deleting the tweet does not delete the thought,” Khaunte said.
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Stakeholders thank Almighty, say delay in shacks allotment blessing in disguise

The Goan Network
Published Oct 26, 2019, 3:06 AM IST
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Stakeholders thank Almighty, say delay in shacks allotment blessing in disguise

the goan I networkMARGAOAs the coastal belt witnessed large scale sea erosion with rising waters inundating the beaches, beach shack owners only thanked the Almighty for saving them from huge losses and destruction of property.Water sports operators, however, faced a torrid time as workers were seen pulling their vessels further onto the land, away from the rising sea water at Colva.In fact, a tourism stakeholder remarked that the delay in the allotment of shacks indeed came…

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