Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, leading an all-party delegation, on Monday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and sought his intervention for an out-of-tribunal settlement of the Mahadayi water matter and on other issues of the southern state.
The Mahadayi water issue, which concerns Goa and Maharashtra apart from Karnataka which needs the supply to provide drinking water to the parched districts of Bagalkot, Belagavi, Dharward and Gadag in the state's northern region, is pending before a tribunal.
"We have urged the prime minister to mediate between the three states and resolve the inter-state water dispute through bilateral negotiations," Siddaramaiah told reporters after a 30-minute meeting with Modi at his official residence.
A PMO release said Modi suggested that a consensus would be necessary among various political parties in all three states before an attempt can be made to resolve the matter out of tribunal through mutual consultations.
The chief minister submitted a memorandum to Modi for central intervention to build barrages across Kalasa-Banduri tributaries of Mahadayi river to divert 7.6 tmc (thousand million cubic) feet water for drinking water to the four districts through Malaprbaha river.
As the 77 km-long Mahadayi or Mandovi river flows to Goa from Karnataka, the former has been objecting over sharing its water, as 52 km of its stretch is in its state and is a lifeline for its people.
"We have been trying to convince Goa over the years that our project does not affect the river flow into its state, as about 200 tmc feet of water is going into the Arabian Sea every year unutilised," Siddaramaiah said.
When the then Goa government approached the Supreme Court in September 2006 to prevent Karnataka going ahead with the project, the central government had set p the Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal on November 16, 2010 to resolve the dispute.
The tribunal, however, on a petition by Goa, directed the state not to utilise the water or divert it through the barrage project till the dispute was adjudicated.
The delegation also brought to Modi's notice the agitation in the region by the people, especially farmers over the last five weeks involving protest demonstrations, hunger strikes and blocking vehicular traffic on state and national highways.
It also raised the issue of "severe drought" in Karnataka, specially in the northern parts of the state and was assured by the prime minister that a central team is being sent to the state to assess the situation at the earliest.
It raised the problems being faced by sugarcane farmers, due to the fall in sugar prices but Modi noted that these problems were being faced by sugarcane farmers across the country and the central government was taking a number of steps to address them.
The delegation also sought a hike in the import duty of silk to 30 percent to protect the interests of the mulberry growers in the state.
The 52-member delegation consisted of central ministers from the state - M. Venkaiah Naidu, D.V. Sadananda Gowda and Anantha Kumar, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge, former state chief ministers B.S. Yeddyurappa, Jagadish Shettar and Dharma Singh, state cabinet ministers, MPs, legislators and people's representatives from the region.
