‘Notrust motion against centre will be last resort’

Cabinet nod follows SC order to the Centre, tribunal would look into claims of Odisha, C’garh

AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh CM N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday said he was ready to move a no-confidence motion against the Narendra Modi government with the support of other parties to get “justice” for the southern state. However, he said such a move will be the “last resort”.

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet approved on Tuesday the setting up of a tribunal to resolve the dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh over the sharing of Mahanadi river water, official sources said. The decision comes following the Supreme Court directive to the Centre last month to form the tribunal within a month to resolve the long-standing dispute.

The Odisha government had moved the court in December 2016, seeking an order asking Chhattisgarh to stop its construction work on the upstream of Mahanadi, saying it had affected the river flow in Odisha.

The state had also pitched for setting up of the tribunal.

The tribunal would determine water sharing on the basis of the overall availability of water in the complete Mahanadi basin, contribution of each state, the present utilisation of water resource in each state and the potential for future development, official sources said.

According to an official statement, the tribunal shall consist of a chairman and two other members nominated by the Chief Justice of India from among the judges of SC or HC.

Further, services of two assessors — water resources experts with experience in handling sensitive issues related to water — will be provided to advise the tribunal in its proceedings, it said.

As per provisions of the Inter State River Water Disputes Act, 1956, the tribunal is required to submit its report and decision within a period of three years, which can be extended for a period not exceeding two years due to “unavoidable reasons”.

The Raman Singh-led BJP government in Chhattisgarh has been building six industrial barrages on the Mahanadi, a river that over half of Odisha’s population depends on, for nearly seven years now. The first sign of a dispute became visible when BJD parliamentarian Dilip Tirkey raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha in July 2016.

The BJD says these structures will prevent water from reaching at least 24 million residents of Odisha at a time when the Mahanadi is witnessing an 80% reduction of flow in non-monsoon months. Chhattisgarh denies the claim, saying the barrages only store monsoon water that otherwise drains into Bay of Bengal.

The river, which runs through at least 20 of Odisha’s 30 districts, virtually fuels the state’s economy and agriculture. Apart from providing at least 60% of the state’s 42 million population with subsistence, the Mahanadi also forms a big part of Odisha’s cultural ethos.

Once feared by residents for the destruction it wreaked through floods, the Mahanadi became Odisha’s lifeline when the state government built a 25-km-long earthen dam across its expanse at Hirakud, Sambalpur district, in 1953. Besides acting as an effective flood-control system, the dam irrigated over 2.35 lakh hectares of cropland and generated 347.5 megawatts of hydropower for the state.