BELAGAVI
Deferring its decision to allow 10.68 hectares of forest land for the Kalsa-Bhandura Water Diversion Project, the National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) has sought additional documents from Karnataka for consideration.
The matter was discussed at the 80th standing committee meeting of National Board for Wildlife (NBWL) in New Delhi on October 9.
Karnataka has been pushing the central government to grant approval for the launch of the project without delay after contending that the Supreme Court has not issued a stay on the project.
The NBWL committee discussed the proposal submitted by the Karnataka government for use of 10.68 hectares of forest land from the tiger corridor in between Kali and Sahyadri Tiger Reserves for construction of diversion weir, jack well cum pump house, electrical substation, pipeline and powerline in Kanakumbi and adjoining villages for construction of Kalsa Nala Diversion Scheme in Khanapur taluks.
The standing committee has directed Karnataka to submit all relevant documents of the project status and said it would take a decision soon on verifying the documents.
Karnataka Additional Chief Secretary (Forest, Ecology and Environment) N Manjunath Prasad said Kalsa-Bhandura project would help supply drinking water to the people in North Karnataka region.
“Since nine months, the expert committee is asking for the approval by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for the project.
Accordingly, the Union government should immediately grant the required permissions to implement the project,” Prasad told media persons in Bangalore.
He also informed that the forest ministry had asked the Karnataka government to get the approval of NBWL for the required 10.68 hectares of land as the project fell in the Tiger Corridor.
“The government had submitted a proposal to NBWL, following which the NTCA expert committee visited the project site,” said Manjunath, adding that the report of NTCA was yet to be submitted to NBWL.
Karnataka representatives are said to have reminded the standing committee that in 2018, the Mhadei Water Dispute Tribunal (MWDT) had awarded the share of Mhadei water to Karnataka, Maharashtra and Goa. Subsequently, the Supreme Court had stated that in 2020 the Central Water Commission could approve the revised project report of Kalsa-Bhandura project.
In December 2022, the Central Water Commission gave its approval to the project, Karnataka officials said, adding that the Karnataka government had submitted a proposal to demand forest wildlife and forest approval to the Centre under the Forest Protection Act.
