The BJD on Tuesday flayed the Centre for not intervening even after “repeated requests” by the Odisha government to stop the BJP government in Chhattisgarh from “clandestine” development of barrages on River Mahanadi.
The Centre, however, hit back, saying it is a State subject. These are “minor” irrigation projects, it said and questioned the BJD on why it did not raise the issue in 2009, when the projects took off.
Raising the issue during a calling attention motion in the Lok Sabha, BJD leader Bhartuhari Mahtab accused the Chhattisgarh government of building seven minor irrigation projects that threaten to “choke” 65 per cent of Odisha’s people by depriving them of irrigation and drinking water. “It is not a political issue, but a human problem,” he said. He wondered if the Centre is in the process of “killing” the 50-year-old dam.
Tathagata Satapathy (BJD) alleged that the water is being used to produce power by the Gujarat Mineral Development Corporation for supply to the plants of big corporate houses in Chhattisgarh, such as Ispat and Jindal.
Abhishek Singh (BJP), son of Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh, said water flow analysis into the Hirakud dam did not show “any declining trend” after the construction of the said projects.