The chairman of the Goa Law commission Ramakant Khalap, has asserted that Goa's borders with Karnataka need to be re-demarcated to protect its resources especially with regard to the Mhadei river.
The chairman remarked that the Mahajan commission report which was appointed by the government of India in the 1960s to address border disputes between Maharashtra and Karnataka should serve as a base for this reorganisation of boundaries where the repot clearly identified Konkani, Marathi and kannada speaking areas.
Khalap recounted that Goa was still under Portuguese rule at the time of the Mahajan commission and therefore the state could not stake its claim to its boundary based on linguistic and geographical factors and said that Portuguese only claimed that part of Goa which was of interest to them and did not not bother about the rest.
The redrawing of borders is necessary in his viewpoint, due to the attempts of the Karnataka government to divert the west flowing Mhadei river to the east, and this was therefore a time for Goa to put forth its claim for its rightful area. Mr Khalap also cautioned the state government to stand up for protecting its other water resources within Goa such as the Tillari project, Selaulim and Anjunem water reservoirs from mining activites within the state of Goa.
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