PANAJI
The row over the Centre's consent to projects proposed by Karnataka to divert waters of the Mhadei river at Kalasa and Bhandura cast its shadow over the Legislators' Day event held at the Assembly complex on Monday with a number of former legislators voicing concern over the situation.
Former Union law minister Ramakant Khalap, former speaker Tomazinho Cardozo, current Rajya Sabha member Vinay Tendulkar, ex-minister Sadanand Malik, Radharo Gracias and Sangeeta Parab were among a dozen or more ex-MLAs who expressed concern over the situation.
Nirmala Sawant, who headed the Mhadei Bachao Abhiyan and has been consistently working on the Mhadei issue for over a decade, including filing petitions in the Supreme Court, expressed concern that not enough was being done by the government.
The government, meanwhile, assured the legislators forum that a separate meeting will be called on January 20, to permit all former legislators as also current ones, to voice their opinions and advice on the vexed inter-state water dispute on Mhadei.
The decades-old Mhadei dispute with Karnataka recently erupted again after news surfaced that the Centre's Central Water Commission had granted its approval to two detailed project reports (DPRs) presented by the neighbouring State to divert 3.9 TMC ft of the river's waters to the Malaprabha river basin with dams at Kalasa and Bhandura.
Cardozo said the Central government must intervene and some sort of understanding reached between the two States. It has to be seen that Goa's share of the waters is maintained, he added.
Tendulkar said, Goa will get justice on the Mhadei matter and added that Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's government was working on the issue.
"The government may be criticised but we are working hard to sort it out. I have faith in Sawant, we will get justice," said Tendulkar who has faced flak for failing to raise relevant issues on the inter-state water dispute in the House of Elders.
