Latest news with #Goa-headquartered
Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
FLY91 announces 'Monsoon Offer' up to Rs 300 off on 20 routes connecting Goa
PUNE: FLY91 has announced special discounts across its network during the monsoon season, airline officials said. The pure-play regional airline is offering up to Rs 300 off on tickets across the 20 routes it currently operates, including five key sectors connecting Goa. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now The 'Monsoon Offer' is valid for tickets booked between 1 June and 30 June, and can be availed for travel until 31 August. The Goa-headquartered airline's decision to launch the 'Monsoon Offer' follows a recent appeal by Goa Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte to encourage travellers to visit the coastal state during the monsoons, a period when tourist numbers usually decline. Earlier this month, during a meeting with travel and tourism stakeholders in the state, Khaunte announced efforts to develop a tourism-focused strategy to promote Goa in the monsoon season, involving collaboration with airline partners and online travel agencies (OTAs) to drive growth in the travel sector. The discounted fares apply to flights connecting Goa (GOX) with Hyderabad (HYD), Jalgaon (JLG), Agatti (AGX), Pune (PNQ), Sindhudurg (SDW), and Solapur (SSE). Additional discounted routes include Pune–Sindhudurg, Bengaluru–Sindhudurg, Hyderabad–Sindhudurg, Jalgaon–Hyderabad, Jalgaon–Pune, and Goa–Solapur, aimed at encouraging travel during the season. 'The one-month 'Monsoon Offer' is FLY91's way of making regional air travel more accessible and affordable during the season. With tourist footfall typically dipping during the monsoons, this initiative aims to incentivise travel to Goa while supporting the state government's broader strategy to promote it as a vibrant, all-season destination,' said Manoj Chacko, MD and CEO of FLY91. Headquartered in Goa, FLY91 currently connects the coastal state to Pune, Hyderabad, Sindhudurg, Jalgaon, and Agatti (Lakshadweep). Operating a growing fleet of ATR 72-600 aircraft from its base at Manohar International Airport (GOX), the airline focuses on seamless, efficient, and customer-centric regional travel.
Hindustan Times
12-05-2025
- Science
- Hindustan Times
Karnataka's plan for diverting Mahadayi river water won't have much impact on Goa: NIO hydrologists
An analysis of the annual water flow of the disputed Mahadayi river (spelt Mhadei in Goa) by hydrologists at the Goa-headquartered National Institute of Oceanography has suggested that Karnataka's plans for diversion of the water as approved by the tribunal would have less of an impact on Goa and can be mitigated via mitigation measures. In a new paper published in the Journal of Earth System Sciences, the researchers — K Anilkumar, D Shankar and K Suprit — simulated the water budget of the Mahadayi river using a more accurate rainfall mapping and rainfall run-off model which made 'two key improvements compared to the data arrived at by the tribunal' to allow them to simulate the discharge at any point along the Mahadayi. According to the simulation, while the diversion of 1.72 tmc (48.7 Mcum) of water from the Kalasa nala (a northern tributary of the Mahadayi) as permitted by the tribunal will have 'a significant impact of the permitted diversion in the northern part of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, the impact on the Mahadayi discharge or the Mandovi estuary is less than the natural variability.' Similarly, according to the study, the diversion of 2.18 tmc (61.73 Mcum) from the Bhandura nala (a tributary of the Mahadayi originating not far from its source) as permitted by the tribunal will only have 'a minor impact on the (river's) discharge at the Goa–Karnataka border' according to the paper. The Kalasa and Bhandura are two tributaries of the Mahadayi that Karnataka seeks to divert to the Malaprabha river. Goa and Karnataka are engaged in a two-decade long dispute over water of the Mahadayi river, a river originating in the Western Ghats on the Karnataka side of the border and flowing west before meeting the seat at Panaji. The 2032 km2 basin that covers much of north Goa is crucial for Goa's water needs. Goa primarily opposes Karnataka's plans to divert waters from the Kalasa and Bhandura streams of the Mahadayi basin to the east-flowing Malaprabha river, a tributary of the Krishna that also originates in the Western Ghats not far from the Mahadayi, but flows east but not objecting to Karnataka's in basin use of the water. The tribunal in its award passed in August 2018 had granted Karnataka a total of 13.42 tmc (380 Mcum) of water of which 8.02 tmc (227 Mcum) was for the proposed Mahadayi Hydroelectric project, 1.5 tmc (42 Mcum) for in basin use and irrigation and allowed the diversion of 1.72 tmc (48 Mcum) of water from the Kalasa stream and 2.18 tmc (61 Mcum) at the proposed Bandura dam. In all, the tribunal permitted Karnataka to divert 110 Mcum of water from the Mhadei basin to the east flowing Malaprabha basin. The dispute is currently before the Supreme Court where both Goa and Karnataka have challenged the tribunals' verdict. The Study According to the authors of the research, they first improved the rainfall distribution data by incorporating the impact of elevation on rainfall in sufficient detail (as small as a 90 m by 90 m quadrants) as opposed to the tribunal's use of the Thiessen polygon method (also known as the weighted average method used to calculate the average rainfall over an area) and assigned a constant value equal to the gauge data to a large area. 'The drawback of using the Thiessen polygon method in an area such as the Western Ghats is that it tends to overestimate or underestimate rainfall in a region where, owing to geographical features, rainfall at two proximate locations can differ widely,' K Suprit who developed the model and who co-authored the paper, said. 'We went on to use a rainfall-mapping method that explicitly prescribes the ridge and mapped the rainfall separately for the windward and leeward sides of the meteorological ridge. The model simulates the sharp reduction in rainfall on the leeward side of the ridge,' he added. 'Hence, the modeling framework used in the study/paper allows the authors This creates a daily discharge time series for the entire basin, which is invaluable for estimating the water resources availability at any point in the entire Mahadayi basin,' he added. The findings At the core of their findings is that at Ganjem in Goa, where waters of the Mhadei transition into the Mandovi estuary and which falls around 40 kms upstream from Panaji, the river receives 2947 Mcum of water per day from June to October (monsoon months) with a standard deviation of 16% or 463 Mcum. Karnataka has been permitted to divert 110.5 Mcum of water. 'The water that will be diverted by Karnataka works out to less than one fourth of one standard deviation. In other words the amount of water that Karnataka is permitted to divert is less than the natural variations in river flow during the monsoon months,' the scientists said. 'The impact of diversion from the Bhandura nala is negligible for the Mahadayi's runoff in Goa,' the paper stated. Goa has consistently argued in its case before the tribunal that Karnataka's plans for water diversion would significantly impact water availability at Ganjem, a barrage whose water is used to supply water to the central parts of the state including the state capital. The researchers also differed with the tribunal's view, as argued by Goa that the projects would jeopardise navigation in the Mandovi estuary. 'Available information is sufficient to show that these projects have no impact on navigation in the Mandovi estuary or the Cumbarjua Canal indeed, navigation in the Mandovi, which is made possible by the tides, is possible even during the lean season, when the natural flow of the Mahadayi is negligible,' the scientists said. This isn't to suggest that the diversions will have no impact on Goa. According to the paper, the diversion from the Kalasa tributary could have 'significant impact' but its impact is restricted to the northern part of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary. 'The impact of the projects permitted by the tribunal is restricted to some distance downstream of the site. Specifically, the impact of diversion from the Kalasa nala is significant in the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary,' the paper said but added that Goa's claimed-impacts of the diversion on the ecology of the sanctuary, which were upheld by the tribunal, were overstated because the significant impact of the permitted diversions is limited largely to the northern part of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary. 'The Kalasa diversion does, however, have a significant effect on the flow in the northern part of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, which covers a stretch of 17 km from the state boundary till the Surla's confluence with the Mahadayi. The diversion of 41.1 Mcum implies a decrease of 35% at the northern end of this stretch covering the sanctuary. This impact, they suggested, could be mitigated by setting up artificial water holes or check dams to help to store a part of the high discharge during rainfall bursts in the sanctuary, as done in the sanctuaries of Goa and also in some other sanctuaries to tide over shortages due to natural seasonal or interannual variability. 'This additional storage will help retain water in the sanctuary, but have a marginal impact on the discharge of the Mahadayi,' the researchers suggested. In summary, the researchers said that their simulation reveals that for the Kalasa nala, there is a significant impact of the permitted diversion in the northern part of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, but the impact on the Mahadayi discharge or the Mandovi estuary is less than the natural variability. 'The Bhandura diversion has a minor impact on the discharge at the Goa–Karnataka border,' the paper also said. The researchers however, noted that the tribunal was right in turning down Karnataka's plea to permit diversion of water from the river feeding the Dudhsagar Falls on the Dudhsagar river, a tributary of the Khandepar (in Goa). 'Permitting this diversion, which would occur just upstream of this iconic waterfall, would have reduced its flow to a trickle and also affected the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary and Mollem National Park. This diversion to the Supa reservoir would have also had a significant impact on the Opa Water Works,' the paper noted. Possible solutions for resolving the dispute The researchers have suggested that it is possible for Goa and Karnataka to reach an agreement in a manner that allows both states to benefit -- a solution that involves Goa and Karnataka reaching an agreement on similar lines to the one Goa has with Karnataka for the Tillari dam -- in which the dam is built upstream on the Karnataka side, since Goa does not have the space not the geography to host a large dam without a huge environmental and people cost -- and both states have a share of the water. A practical solution to the simmering dispute over the Kalasa nala would involve prescribing a floor (minimum) on the downstream runoff and allowing Karnataka to divert more water from the neighbourhood of the Bhandura nala. Prescribing the floor on the downstream runoff in the Kalasa nala or guaranteeing a minimum flow downstream of the Kalasa dam would reduce the effect on the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and ensure downstream runoff even in the driest years. Since the Kalasa diversion canal is already constructed (Karnataka Neeravari Nigam Limited 2022b), a practical solution is to restrict the diversion to the proposed 30 Mcum from the Kalasa nala and avoid diverting water from the Surla… Since the contribution of the Bhandura nala to the discharge at the state boundary is small it is possible to permit diversion of the entire runoff of the Bhandura nala to compensate for the lower diversion from the Kalasa nala. The researchers even suggested Karnataka to shift its proposed Bandura dam to a location they call C1, which is lower downstream and located after the confluence of the Bandura stream with the main Mahadayi river, which will allow the setting up of a bigger dam, with less loss of forest cover (since it falls on the leeward side of the Ghats), the waters of which could be shared by Goa and Karnataka. Hence, while Goa needs storages, a fact acknowledged in a meeting of stakeholders in 2015 (India Water Partnership 2016), it is not in a position to construct them in its territory. The leeward region, with its gentler topography), is less densely populated than the coast region and is not as ecologically sensitive as the ridge and foothills, suggesting that it would be easier to impound water there. Hence, a more cooperative approach could help resolve the Mahadayi water dispute. 'Goa and Karnataka will have to agree to a water-sharing formula for the storage at C1. The likely trade-off envisages Goa agreeing to a certain amount of diversion in return for guaranteed supply during the lean season. Prescribing a floor on the discharge downstream, however, is still as essential as the cap on the diversion,' the scientists said. The annual surplus in the Mahadayi basin, when evaluated along with the scarcity towards the end of the lean season, suggests that a viable solution can be found if both Goa and Karnataka work out a cost-sharing and water-sharing formula with storages constructed on the leeward side of the meteorological ridge in the Mahadayi basin. In summary, it should be possible to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution to this dispute by shifting the storages from Goa, where it is difficult to construct them, to the leeward side of the ridge in Karnataka. The gain for Karnataka would be in the permitted diversion and the gain for Goa would be the augmented in-basin storage, from which water could be released during the lean season. Goa has a similar agreement with Maharashtra for the Tillari Irrigation Project, in which the Tillari river, that originates in Maharashtra is dammed in the upper riparian state, but via an agreement, Maharashtra supplies water from the dam to Goa. The scientists however, warn that irrespective of such an agreement being reached the scientists have warned that 'given the difficulty of storing water in this small basin with significant topographic gradients and the fragile ecology of the Sahyadris, both Goa and Karnataka will also have to rethink their cropping patterns.' 'Goa may have to reduce the cultivation of rice during the Rabi season and Karnataka the cultivation of sugarcane,' the researchers suggested. There exists support among the agricultural stakeholders in Goa for rethinking cropping patterns, better management of irrigation, and growing crops that require less water (India Water Partnership 2016), but a similar change is required in Karnataka to preclude groundwater resources reaching a critical state.
