With the Mahanadi basin water continuing to be deficit, the State Government is not in a mood to agreeing to the proposal of the Government of India on interlinking of the river with the Godavari.
Surface water balance of Mahanadi basin up to Barmul at 75 per cent dependability is assessed to be deficit by 18, 718 million cubic meter (MCM) and there may not be any spills to arrive at the desired success rate of the link project, reveals the latest report on river Mahanadi.
The State Government has pointed out these facts to the Ministry of Water Resources (MoWR) and National Water Development Agency (NWDA), which is taking up river inter linking, said sources.
The officials admit that Mahanadi basin is a deficit basin if the actual demand of Mahanadi delta and environmental and ecological flow requirement as per norms of the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) guidelines and surface water generation as per norms of the Task Force for Inter Linking of Rivers are considered.
Inter basin water transfer is considered as one of the long term options to correct the natural imbalances in the availability of water among various regions of the country.
Mahanadi was to be inter linked with river Godavari and accordingly a feasibility report was prepared by the NWDA.
The link canal of 301km length was proposed to take off from right of Manibhadra reservoir, which was to traverse through Nayagarh, Khordha, Ganjam and Gajapati. And the link canal was to outfall into river Godavari at Dowlaiswaram barrage in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh after traversing a total distance of 828 km in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
The Odisha Government has earlier objected to such a proposal as reservoir Manibhadra on Mahanadi river will involve large scale displacement and submergence of huge forest land.
Later, it was changed to Barmul. However with a deficit situation, the Government of Odisha is not in favour of interlinking.
But then, the NWDA is not agreeing to such observations and says water balance at Barmul satisfies the requirement.
The State Government not satisfied with the NWDA contention has again asked if the NWDA has tested the success of Hirakud dam project for the demands contemplated in Detailed Project Report (DPR) of 1947.
That DPR includes future demands, considering all the ultimate demands of upstream State of Chhattisgarh and other basin States while conducting the water balance study of Mahanadi basin up to Barmul.
Similarly, what quantity of water transfer has been planned from the Himalayan rivers to Mahanadi is not clear till date. So questions are raised in this regard as the Government of India is saying there will be transfer of water from the Himalayan rivers to Mahanadi.
Unless these questions are cleared, there would be confusion over the matter and river interlinking would not be a feasible proposition, pointed out an expert.