BHUBANESWAR: Bringing its focus back on
Mahanadi water sharing dispute between Odisha and
Chhattisgarh, the ruling
Biju Janata Dal (
BJD) on Monday announced to hold a symposium of people’s representatives from 15 districts affected by the river here on April 15.
Ministers, BJD MPs, MLAs, elected representatives at block, town and zilla parishad level from Angul, Bargarh, Boudh, Cuttack, Deogarh, Sambalpur, Jharsuguda, Subarnapur, Nayagarh, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri and Khurda will deliberate on party’s next course of action on the dispute. This was stated by senior BJD leaders
Prasanna Acharya, Debi Prasad Mishra, Sanjay Das Burma and Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak in a joint press conference at BJD headquarters.
Justifying the need for such a conference, Das Burma said the Centre was forced to form a tribunal because of the Supreme Court direction on January 23, but is dilly dallying on taking it forward. “The Union ministry of water resources notified the tribunal on March 12 but is conspicuous for not providing the terms of reference to the state government. It has not created the infrastructure for the tribunal. On the contrary, the water resources ministry on April 3 has given a letter to the state, stating its intention to hold a meeting of the riparian states of Mahanadi. The Centre’s stand raises suspicion,” he said.
Accusing the Centre of being biased towards Chhattisgarh, Prasanna Acharya said after Mahanadi, Chhattisgarh has started planning for a project in Maini, a tributary of Ib river (also part of Mahanadi water system). It will dangerously stifle Ib flow,” he said.
The BJD leaders pointed out that Chhattisgarh has closed all the 66 gates of Kalma barrage in the Hirakud upstream arbitrarily stopping water inflow into Hirakud. The non-monsoon flow to Hirakud reservoir is reduced by 30% this year compared to last year, they said.
The state BJP said BJD has reinvented the Mahanadi issue to shield the
Naveen Patnaik government from its failure to provide drinking water and uninterrupted power supply to people this summer. “If the Mahanadi flow has reduced, the government should come out with facts and figures of water flow in past some years and explain the reasons. Now since people are facing acute drinking water shortage and erratic power supply due to government inaction, the ruling regional party here is using Mahanadi as a weapon to divert people’s attention,” BJP state vice-president Sameer Mohanty said.
