Bhubaneswar: The Chhattisgarh government has constructed 516 check dams to check water flow in river Mahanadi which has affected non-monsoon water inflow in the river at Hirakud, informed Water Resources Minister Raghunandan Das in the Odisha Assembly today.
In a written reply to Congress legislator Tara Prasad Bahinipati, the Minister said that while non-monsoon water inflow into the Hirakud reservoir is estimated at 2 million acre-feet there has been an average 4% drop from 1991-92 to 2004-05 and 37% between 2005-06 to 2015-16.
Similarly, in 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 there has been an average drop in non-monsoon water inflow of 65%, 61%, 57% and 3% respectively, the Minister added.
Elaborating on the various legal steps taken by the government for resolving the Mahanadi water inflow dispute, Das stated that (a) the State government in 2016 has lodged a statutory complaint with the Central government as per provisions of the Inter-State Water Disputes Act of 1956; (b) the State government has filed an Original Suit in the Supreme Court (c) Odisha government has been putting forth its demands at various points of time before the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal after its constitution following Central government’s notification of 12 March 2018.
In the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jharkhand are parties but the Central government is not a party, he clarified.
