BJP leader and former Assembly Deputy Speaker Rama Chandra Panda on Thursday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Parliament House in New Delhi and submitted a memorandum to him demanding completion of the Rushikulya-Mahanadi river linking project in the interest of farmers and the public in the State.
Though there has been a consistent demand from south Odisha since 1986 to protect Rushikulya from drying up, the successive Central Governments have not paid heed to it, the memorandum said. Panda had also submitted a similar memorandum to the former Prime Minister earlier.
The Rushikulya Banchao Manch, a body of farmers and senior citizens, which spearheaded the river linking movement in Ganjam district led by Panda had taken out a massive 300-km-long match known as Jala Yatra with thousands of men and women from Kasinagar to the Raj Bhavan in Bhubaneswar in 2010 and submitted a memorandum to the State Governor on this issue.
Over the last two decades in particular, Rushikulya remains dried nearly for six months in a year causing serious drinking water crisis and affecting vegetable crops on its bank. As a result, thousands of farmers and cattle who solely depend on the water of the river have been hit hard. The riverside villagers are also facing an acute scarcity of drinking water, the memorandum added.
Panda apprised the Prime Minister that if this project is implemented, a 225-km-long canal would flow from the Mahanadi’s Barmul point and meet at Kabisuryanagar via Ganjam, Nayagada and Khordha districts. These three districts would immensely benefit out of such a linkage as more than one lakh acres of land of the districts could be cultivated for Rabi and Kharif crops.
Panda told the Prime Minister that even though the National Water Resources Commission (NWRC), after a preliminary technical feasibility survey, had given its opinion in favour of linking of Mahanadi-Rushikullya and Mahanadi-Bansadhara rivers since long, no tangible progress has yet been made in this direction. He urged the PM to take necessary steps to expedite these river-linking projects soon.