Naveen plays tough, but 2007 study shows higher non-monsoon inflow

MAHANADI WATER DISPUTE

AT A time when Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik has said his government will explore all administrativeandlegalavenuestoprotectrights of the state in the Mahanadi water dispute, the report of a committee appointed by Odisha government in 2007 has showed that there is little to panic as the “non-monsoon inflow” in the river has actually increased.

Theassemblylastweekdebatedconstructionofbarragesintheuppercatchmentareaof Mahanadi by Chhattisgarh government. The Opposition has said it will support the state governmentinfightingforthestate’sinterests.

In 2007, the Odisha government had appointed a high-level technical committee under the chairmanship of the former chairman of Central Water Commission (CWC), R Jeyaseelan, to study various aspects of water usage for the Hirakud reservoir.

The committee, which studied the inflow, divided its findings into two parts — the initial 25 years between 1957 and 1982 and the later 25 years between 1982 and 2006. The report revealed that the non-monsoon (post-septemberrain)averageannualinflowtohirakud reservoir between 1951 and 1981 was 2.750 million acre feet whereas the same for the period between 1982 and 2006 was 3.601 million acre feet — an increase of 23.65 per cent.

The non-monsoon inflow has gone up despite Chhattisgarh building a number of major, medium and minor water resources projects in the upper catchment area.

Chhattisgarh is currently building 6 minor irrigation projects at Samoda, Sheorinarayan, Basantpur, Mironi, Saradih, and Kalma. The total area proposed to be irrigated by these would be 3,149 hectares.

The barrages under construction on upper catchment area have a total capacity of 274 million cubic metre, much less than the lost storage in Hirakud due to siltation. The live capacity of existing dams in Chhattisgarh has already been reduced due to siltation by nearly 345 million cubic metre.

The reservoir sedimentation study conducted by the CWC by remote sensing technique showed that the live storage of the reservoir had reduced to 4,934 million cubic metre in 2007. The CWC also calculated the loss in live storage in 50 years to be 20.12 per cent.

The Odisha government has so far not shown how new projects in Chhattisgarh would impact the state. Principal Secretary of Water Resources Department, Pradip Jena, refused to comment on the state’s stand, saying that the CM has already articulated it during his meeting with Union Minister Uma Bharti and Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh.

The average per capita water availability (both surface and ground) in Odisha is 3359 cubic metre per year, as compared to the national average of 1820 cubic metre per year. Even if the population growth is taken into account,thepercapitaavailabilitywouldbe2218 cubic metre per year in 2051, much above the water-stressed condition of 1700 cubic metre.

BJP MLA Pradip Purohit said: “The state government was aware of the construction of barrages by Chhattisgarh. It is now making noise to wriggle out of recent controversies.”