When the ruling BJD is creating a lot of hue and cry describing the dams over the Mahanadi river ‘a cloak-and-dagger act’ by the Chhattisgarh Government and the Centre, the grim fact remains is Odisha has been sitting over the volcano for four-long decades.
Way back in May 1976, the then Madhya Pradesh Government (now Chhattisgarh) right here in Bhubaneswar spoke of constructing barrages upstream on the Mahanadi in future.
According to summary of discussions document available with State Water Resources Department, Odisha and the then MP Government had a bilateral meeting on inflow to Hirakud in May 1976 in Bhubaneswar.
Records show that State officials then had expressed apprehension over progressive development of consumptive use of Mahanadi waters upstream of Hirakud via a series of planned projects and complained about its potential to upset original plan of use and operation of Hirakud reservoir.
Then, while at the outset, MP allayed Odisha’s apprehension of inflow to Hirakud getting affected in lean season, simultaneously it argued quite aggressively that since a whopping 28,000 square miles of Hirakud catchment lies in MP (now Chhattisgarh) and 4,000 square miles in Odisha, they cannot, therefore, accede to Odisha’s demand of not utilising any water from their catchment for all time to come.
Significantly, MP then in the meeting countered that there could be no objection by Odisha to the plan utilisation of water not committed for the Hirakud project.
Moreover, MP even went a step forward counselling Odisha then that since Odisha has 4,000 square miles in upstream catchment with a potential to generate an annual flow of more than 4MAF (million acre feet), Odisha could easily store in its own territory whatever water it needed to meet the deficiencies of post-monsoon inflow even after full development of irrigation upstream. Significantly, MP in 1976 meeting added that interception by upstream reservoirs would substantially get compensated by regenerated flows from irrigated areas.
Conspicuously, to this counsel, Odisha retorted by bringing to fore four cardinal objections such as constructing storage reservoirs in Odisha territory would mean substantial additional cost to Odisha; possibility of such sites has not been yet ascertained and after sanctioning of Hirakud Project on certain assumptions of inflows, the upper riparian State should not interfere with the inflows in a manner that affects the assumptions and should not ask the lower riparian State to compensate inflow losses at substantial additional cost.
Given the discussion’s backdrop, the big inference then pops out is both Odisha and Chhattisgarh (then MP) very well knew the effect on the inflow to Odisha in non-monsoon season following the future upstream projects way back in 1976 – that is exactly 40 years back. But the ruling BJD is crying wolf in 2016!
The result: When Odisha has one dam (Hirakud) on Mahanadi, Chhattisgarh has many already constructed and upcoming on the river.