Maha panel meet yields no result

BHUBANESWAR: THE meeting of Assembly Committee on Odisha’s dispute with Chhattisgarh over Mahanadi river water headed by Speaker Pradip Amat remained inconclusive in the absence of Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra. The committee will again meet in the first week of February.

Mishra said he could not attend Thursday’s meeting because of prior engagements in his home district of Balangir. Leader of the BJP legislature party KV Singhdeo, however, criticised the ruling BJD for lack of seriousness to resolve the dispute with the neighbouring State. Alleging that the ruling BJD is doing vote bank politics over the issue, Singh referred to the absence of four BJD members from the committee meeting.

Out of the 16 members in the committee including the Speaker, 9 are from the BJD, Congress and BJP have two members each. Laxman Munda (CPM) and George Tirkey (Independent) are the other two members.  

The decision to constitute the House Committee was taken on December 7 after the Centre rejected Odisha’s demand to set up a tribunal to resolve the dispute over Mahanadi river water between the two States.  The decision was taken at an all party meeting attended by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

The House Committee was constituted to chalk out the strategy to be adopted by Odisha in the dispute with neighbouring Chhattisgarh over sharing of Mahanadi water. Even as the State Government demanded setting up of a tribunal to resolve the dispute, Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari requested Odisha Government on January 4, while replying to a question in the Lok Sabha, to settle the water sharing dispute with Chhattisgarh through dialogue, saying records show that moving a tribunal only delays a solution. However, Odisha Government had rejected Gadkari’s request.