PANAJI
Considering that the demand for water will rise in the next few years, Goa will have to work on storage, management and saving of water to meet its future needs. In view of this, two spots on river Mhadei are zeroed for the construction of two small dams at Kajumal and Tatodi, informed Water Resource Minister Subhash Shirodkar.
A process of constructing 54 small dams on river Mhadei has been taken up by the Water Resource department and the minister has had a meeting of the departmental officers recently. When asked to comment on this Shirodkar affirmed that the process has been initiated. “The Water Resource department has decided to speed up the process of constructing small dams at various places on river Mhadei,” said Shirodkar.
Alleging that the State of Goa is not using the waters of Mhadei appropriately, which eventually leads this excess water to the ocean, the neighbouring Karnataka kept on abusing the water of Mhadei for years. The Goa government had prepared a master plan to use maximum water of Mhadei in 1999. Accordingly, the current government was planning to build 61 dams at various places on Mhadei and start producing electricity wherever waterfalls existed. However, since the necessary permissions to construct these dams on Mhadei were not issued by the Union Forest, Environment and Climate Change department, these dams have remained only on paper for the past many years, alleged the minister.
