Summary:
This means 46 kms out of its 76 km length is affected by salinity. Panaji: The Mhadei water disputes tribunal (MWDT) is likely to remain a focus of attention on both sides of the Goa-Karnataka border and elsewhere, as final arguments in the dispute between the two riparian states concluded on Wednesday.The matter is now posted for award before August 2018, as the tenure of the tribunal which was formed in 2013 ends in about six months. Mhadei basin is a water-deficit basin, as water has to be pumped from Zuari basin via Kalay river and also from mining pits in summer.Further, Goa has pointed out that by raising a bogey of dire requirement of water in its letter dated April 16, 2002, Karnataka sought a trans-basin diversionGoa’s legal and technical team headed by senior counsel, Atmaram N S Nadkarni and assisted by advocate general Dattaprasad Lawande, has argued the state’s case well before the tribunal. After the hearings commenced, a total of 117 of them have been held in less than six years.While Karnataka has largely completed a canal, minus a storage dam, for diversion of the Kalsa tributary of Mhadei into Malaprabha basin, it had sought a share of 7.56 TMC of water from Mhadei basin, stating that availability of water is 200 TMC.But Goa has argued that nearly 50 sq kms of the basin are affected by salinity, leaving only 150 sq kms free of it..