Dispute over river
The Chhattisgarh govt is building six barrages on the Mahanadi, a river that over half of Odisha’s population depends on
Barrage of woes
The six industrial barrages in question are Kalma, Saradih, Basantpur, Mirauni, Sheorinarayan and Samoda.
If all these structures operate in tandem, the non-monsoon outflow to the Odisha side of Mahanadi will be 0.67 MAF.
The green tribunal stayed the construction in July, on a petition filed by social activist Sudarshan Das. Environmentalists say reduction of water flow due to the barrages will affect biodiversity hotspots
Dry facts
By 2051, Odisha and Chhattisgarh will need 36.18 MAF and 27.48 MAF water per year from Mahanadi respectively.
The total availability of water from the river currently stands at 40 MAF. This will only reduce as the years go by.
The total catchment area is 1.41 lakh square kilometres (45.73 % in Odisha and 53.9% in Chhattisgarh).
Over three crore people are likely to be affected across Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
Hirakud
Hirakud dam, the first river valley project to be taken up post-Independence, was originally planned as a flood-control reservoir to mitigate floods in the downstream delta.
Due to siltation, the capacity of the reservoir has decreased by 24% since its construction
Sharing of water
There is no water-sharing agreement in the case of the Mahanadi. An attempt was made during the pre-foundation days in 1983, when Madhya Pradesh chief minister Arjun Singh and Odisha chief minister JB Patnaik agreed to form a joint control board on water sharing between the two states, but nothing came out of it.
Of all inter-state water tribunals, only three have delivered verdicts found acceptable by the states involved.