Goa to serve notice to K'taka over Mahadayi water diversion:

The Goa government will serve notice to Karnataka for 'diverting' the water of Mahadayi River to Malaprabha basin even as the two states are locked in a dispute over sharing the river's waters, minister Vinod Palyekar told the Legislative Assembly today.

The minister told the House that, following the serving of this notice, the Goa government would file an interlocutory application (application moved in the main petition for urgent relief or to bring new facts to the knowledge of the court) in the Mahadayi Water Disputes Tribunal.

He said that he was making this statement as a correction to the assurance he had made in the House on Wednesday.

"I had said (on Wednesday) that we will be filing interlocutory application before the tribunal in next two days. But now I would like to clarify that it would be done after serving notice to Karnataka," Palyekar told the House today.

The minister on Wednesday had told the House that Karnataka had diverted the water of Mahadayi river by constructing conduits to Malaprabha basin and had claimed that it was a violation of the order of the Mahadayi Water Dispute Tribunal.

The river is known as Mhadei or Mandovi in Goa.