Even as the Centre has been persuading the State Government to back its river linking project promising the moon, State Water Resources Department Principal Secretary Pradeep Kumar Jena said Odisha was yet to get a detailed proposal on interlinking the Mahanadi with the Godavari in Andhra Pradesh.
Not clarifying whether Odisha was averse to such a river linking plan, Jena said all that the Centre has submitted to the State was a concept about the interlinking of rivers in the country. “Hence, it is not possible on the part of the State Government to take any initiative,” he maintained. He further stated that unless the State receives the details of such a proposal, it cannot act.
Notably, the Centre floated a Special Purpose Vehicle on June 6 to link the Mahanadi with the Godavari as part of its efforts to interlink major rivers and launching a Rs3,600 crore National Hydrology Project.
The project envisages establishing a hydro-met network in all the river basins for gathering hydro-meteorological data on a standardised central database for easy storage, validation and dissemination for development of Decision Support Systems for flood forecasting, reservoir operations, water resources planning, management and conjunctive use.
The project also aims at enhancing the capacity of the States in these areas. According to Union Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR), much emphasis is being laid on the interlinking rivers throughout the country to avoid flood situation, improve the irrigation facilities and construct more dams for generation of hydro power to meet the growing needs of the country.
The Ministry is working towards sustainable development, maintenance of quality and efficient use of water resources to meet the growing demands. Under this project, water will be transferred from surplus basins to deficit basins to curb flood situations.
A Central team recently held discussion with the State Government in this regard to which the latter had responded saying it would study the proposal before taking any decision.
Meanwhile, Water Initiative Odisha (WIO), a leading watchdog on issues pertaining to water, demanded a status paper on the availability of water in the Mahanadi river.
WIO convenor Ranjan Panda said the Mahanadi as opposed to the views expressed by various sources that the river is water surplus is actually a water deficit river now. He described all data justifying that the Mahanadi is water surplus as obsolete.
“The Mahanadi is already a stressed river. Accelerated urbanisation, increased mining and blind promotion of coal fired power plants have already dried up the river. In almost eight to nine months in a year the river is not able to maintain even minimum ecological flow. Irrigation as well as drinking water projects are not able to meet targets and a number of conflicts between different user groups are growing by the day in the entire basin,” Panda said in a release, warning that diversion of water from the Mahanadi will bring more chaos and misery to the basin communities.
The feasibility studies of the river linking projects have always remained controversial. Neither the States nor independent experts have been taken into confidence by successive Governments at the Centre. A link that involves large dams and other construction activities will have huge impact on ecology of the river system.
Further, the plan will also lead to social unrest as a large number of people will be displaced. Resettlement and rehabilitation of project oustees has always been mired with controversies and the States have miserably failed in this. The project will therefore not be feasible, Panda observed.