Bengaluru, March 5 (IANS): As declared earlier, Karnataka Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa on Thursday allocated Rs 500 crore in the fiscal 2020-21 state budget for the Mahadayi river project to supply water to 4 drought-prone districts in the state's northwest region.

"I am providing Rs 500 crore for civil works in the Kalasa and Bhanduri tributaries of Mahadayi to supply water to the people and farmlands in the 4 drought-prone districts of the state," said Yediyurappa while presenting the budget for the ensuing fiscal in the Assembly here.

The four arid districts Bagalkot, Belagavi, Dharwad and Gadag in the Deccan region are 400 km-550 km northwest of Bengaluru in the southern state.

The Centre on February 27 notified the Mahadayi inter-state water tribunal award following the February 20 Supreme Court directive.

The tribunal on August 14, 2018 allocated 13.42 thousand million cubic feet (tmcft) of the river water to Karnataka.

Goa, which opposed Karnataka's demand for 36.66 tmcft, was allocated 24 tmcft and Maharashtra 1.3 tmcft.

The 77km-long Mahadayi or Mandovi river originates at Bhimgad in the Western Ghats in Belagavi district and flows into neighbouring Goa through Maharashtra and joins the Arabian Sea off the west coast.

Though the river flows 29 km in Karnataka and 52 km in Goa, its catchment area is spread over 2,032 km in the southern state as against 1,580 km in the western state (Goa).

Yediyurappa, who also holds the finance portfolio, allocated Rs 1,500 crore for the Yettinahole project across the Nethravathi river in the biodiverse Western Ghats to supply drinking water to 7 districts in the state's southern region, facing scarcity due to depletion of ground water over the years.

"The lift component works of the first state of the Yettinahole project will be completed soon to conduct trials during the southwest monsoon from June to September," he told the lawmakers in Kannada.