Report: Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji (SP)
 
Panaji, Jun 20: Goa’s current political boundaries have largely shrunk as a result of past blunders the state needs to redraw its confines based on Mahajan Commission's report, a former union law minister has advocated.
 
“Mahajan Commission had acknowledged Kanada, Marathi and Konkani areas based on which the state boundaries need to be redrawn,” former union law minister Ramakant Khalap told reporters here on Friday June 19.
 
Khalap, who is presently State Law Commission chairman, said the Commission had presented its report in the year 1956 and Goa had no prospect of making any representation to the Commission as it was then a Portuguese colony.
 
He said that in the current circumstances, if the recommendations of Mahajan Commission are taken into account, areas like Karwar, Supa and Haliyal in Karnataka and places located in the Konkan belt of Maharashtra should form part of Goa.
 
Khalap expressed his strong opinion that during the state reorganization, the Mahajan Commission report should have been considered while demarcating the Goan boundaries.
 
He also said that many of the inter-state disputes like water dispute could have been easily sorted out with such a demarcation. “Right now Karnataka intends to reroute Mhadei river water, claiming that it is needed for drinking purpose. “If we had drawn the state boundries properly, the origin of Mhadei river would have been in Goa and that would have solved the issue itself,” Khalap felt.