PANAJI
Following uproar over its controversial findings pertaining to the disputed Mhadei river water diversion, the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has clarified that the document is merely a “research paper” and not a “report”.
“The water budget of the Mahadayi river and its implications for the inter-State dispute”, research paper by researchers -- K Anilkumar, D Shankar and K Suprit -- claims that Karnataka’s plans for diversion of the water from the disputed Mhadei river will have less of an impact on Goa as a whole, but a significant impact will be seen on the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary.
Refusing to come on record, one of the researchers informed that it is just part of Phd research and has nothing to do with Mhadei findings as such.
“Our findings were part of an academic exercise rather than a formal submission to the government or any agency. We have not presented our research paper to anyone,” he said.
According to the researchers, “for the Kalasa nala, there is a significant impact of the permitted diversion -- 1.72 tmc (48.7 Mcum) by the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal in the northern part of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, but the impact on the Mahadayi discharge or the Mandovi estuary is less than the natural variability,” the researchers said in their report published in the Journals of Earth Sciences.
Similarly, according to the study, the diversion of 2.18 tmc (61.73 Mcum) from the Bhandura nala as permitted by the tribunal will only have “a minor impact on the (river’s) discharge at the Goa–Karnataka border.
The findings, revealed by The Goan in its March 13 edition, had sparked uproar across Goa, with concerned citizens staging protest outside NIO office at Dona Paula.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant went on record to inform that State government did not ask NIO to conduct any study nor it is part of Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal (MWDT) Award. He said that NIO findings will have no impact on Goa’s plea before the Supreme Court.
The tribunal in its award passed in August 2018 had granted Karnataka a total of 13.42 tmc (380 Mcum) of water of which 8.02 tmc (227 Mcum) was for the proposed Mhadei Hydroelectric project, 1.5 tmc (42 Mcum) for in basin use and irrigation and allowed the diversion of 1.72 tmc (48 Mcum) of water from the Kalasa stream and 2.18 tmc (61 Mcum) at the proposed Bandura dam. In all, the tribunal permitted Karnataka to divert 110 Mcum of water from the Mhadei basin to the east flowing Malaprabha basin.
According to the researchers, Goa’s claimed impacts of the diversion on ecology, which were upheld by the tribunal, are overstated because the significant impact of the permitted diversions is limited largely to the northern part of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, but does extend farther downstream to the rest of the sanctuary in low-rainfall years.
