Mahanadi water dispute: Raman-Naveen meeting today

The Delhi meeting would be chaired by union Water Resources Minister Uma Bharti, who has invited Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh and his Odisha counterpart Naveen Patnaik to iron out differences over the issue amicably.

Virtually Patnaik has made it a political issue a few months ahead of the Panchayat Poll by accusing the BJP government in Chhattisgarh of unilaterally constructing scores of barrages and anicuts to check or divert Mahanadi river water from flowing in to Hirakud reservoir and downstream as Mahanadi is originated from Dhamtari district and has a catchment of 82,432 sq km or its 86 per cent are in Chhattisgarh

"Patnaik will attend the meeting with all facts and figures on Mahanadi dispute," a government Spokesman told Millennium Post adding Odisha has taken 'seriously' the issue of construction of barrages and anicuts by Chhattisgarh at the upstream of Mahanadi, as it is the life line of Odisha and for both irrigation and drinking water a vast area of the state is depending upon the river.

Both the neighbouring states are locked in a duel for the last four decades over sharing of water from Mahanadi. To resolve the protracted dispute, on April 28, 1983 the then undivided Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh and his Orissa counterpart Janaki Ballav Pattanaik signed an agreement to constitute a 'board' to look into survey, water sharing and other related issues of Mahanadi. But that never happened and the issue was remained untouched and unresolved.

Chhattisgarh Water Resources Minister Brij Mohan Agrawal has accused the Naveen government of "playing politics over the issue" and said his government does not want to hide anything on Mahanadi

Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh has said indicating that his BJP government was not in a mood to give any more space to Odisha on the issue said "Hirakud Dam was constructed in 1957 on Mahanadi and it is irrelevant now to raise the issue of Hirakud reservoir and Mahanadi water sharing by Odisha after 59 years".

"Mahanadi water can fill seven such Hirakud reservoirs as Mahanadi carry average 40,773 MCM water, where as the Hirakud dam has a capacity of only 5400 MCM capacity," Chhattisgarh government said and clarified that the barrages, constructed on river Mahanadi, would not affect the water intake of Hirakud dam as the barrages are meant for checking rain water and not having any diversion bear to check the normal flow.