The National Green Tribunal (NGT), Kolkata Bench, in an interim order passed recently, has directed the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) and the district Collector not to encroach the Kathjodi and Mahanadi rivers’ stretches passing through the Cuttack city area and asked them to stop dumping any waste material into the rivers.
The orders were passed in response of a case filed by Dr Biswajit Mohanty, an eminent environmentalist of Cuttack, against the encroachments of riverbeds of Mahanadi and Kathjodi as well as dumping of wastages and debris by the Municipal Corporation into the riverbeds. Advocate Sankar Prasad Pani appeared on behalf of the applicant.
In the petition, Dr Mohanty had pointed out the encroachments of the riverbeds. Parking lots, parks, colonies, Pucca roads had been built on the river bed in front of Gada Gadia temple, Khan Nagar Kali Temple and other locations. The CMC had also encroached the Kathjodi bed by building a parking lot near the approach road of the Trishulia bridge.
Dr Mohanty demanded a thorough survey and demarcation of the river limits and complete restoration of the river bed in order to maintain a healthy water flow and ecology in the Mahanadi and Kathjodi.