Sensing a gargantuan challenge from a raging BJP riding on PM Modi’s charisma, and when the ruling BJD apparently finding itself sucked deep into the scandalous mucks, the ruling party for ‘electoral nirvana’ went for a plunge in the Mahanadi.
Why, or else, when the smoke of Kelo Project and Arpa-Bhaisajar barrage emanated from Chhattisgarh soil way back in 2007 and 2012, when the irrigation projects were touted then by Chhattisgarh Government as harbinger of new Green Revolution and which hogged the national media headlines then, Odisha caught fire only in 2016 as the State Government here smelt the perils when the projects are almost on the verge of completion.
Significantly, as per a Central Water Commission (CWC) assessment, the river basin of Mahanadi has an average water resources potential of around 66.9 billion cubic metre (BCM) annually and the surface storage capacity created in the Mahanadi basin is only 50BCM. And, with increasing population in the basin, where Odisha has a share of over 46 per cent to Chhattisgarh’s around 53 per cent, the per capita water availability of Mahanadi river basin is on the down slope as it is set to touch 1,294 million cubic metres (MCM) by 2050 – down by 29 per cent since 2010.
This reveals reduced water availability per capita in the Mahanadi in future.
As per the 1983 inter-State agreement, Chhattisgarh has been allotted to use 26, 542 MCM of water of Mahanadi basin. And, the current water usage by Chhattisgarh from the basin stood at around 7, 470 MCM. Since, rivers are dynamic in nature and Mahanadi being dependant on monsoon, there ought to have a fresh review done with regard to the water resources potential of Mahanadi basin now, given the present CWC assessment was done in 1993.
Odisha’s best bet now lies in proving the fact that could show how the State is or would be drawing reduced water inflow as an after effect to Chhattisgarh’s upping up of surface storage projects in Mahanadi basin. Even, in the July 29 meeting in New Delhi when the Chhattisgarh Chief Secretary mounted with loads of technical evaluations floored his Odisha counterpart, courtesy absence of any equivalent technical counter-evaluation with the Odisha Chief Secretary to pin down Chhattisgarh claims.
What surprises the water watch bodies here is while the ruling party is gleefully moving fast to flame up passions on Mahanadi water in districts where the river is the lifeline, it makes a niggard headway on the real ground of technical study which matters most to fight with either in tribunal or in the Supreme Court.
Even, what dismays the political watchers is BJD’s political move to set fire on the Mahanadi river in order to harvest a sound electoral fortune.
The reason: It carries the risk of sinking BJD in the Mahanadi eddies as the ‘hype’ of BJD must have to meet the ‘ground-level’ feeling among the water users in the districts.
BJD’s hawkish stance could bear fruits only when the standing crops of farmers in Odisha could risk a washout like the infamous Cauvery imbroglio that singed Karnataka and TN in 1990s.