While India’s public dialogue veers
mostly around politics, emotions and obscurantism, worthy topics like
governance, economics or development crave for space despite the Prime Minister
striving to bring issues like startups, Swachha Bharat, and Digital India to
the centre-stage. Political strategists sometimes work overtime to create new
issues, whip up emotions, and resort to dramatics.
Though Odisha continues to reel under
poverty, unemployment, a chaotic health delivery system and a highly fragile
education infrastructure despite bountiful natural endowments and a popular
Chief Minister getting massive popular mandates, Chhattisgarh, a fledgling
member in the comity of states in the Indian federal system, however, is
proving the protagonists of smaller states right. Governance, on a mission
mode, is geared towards development and prosperity despite the state having its
various problems including a share of Maoist activity. Raipur has emerged as
one of India’s major manufacturing hubs.
Despite suffering an under performing
government, Odisha society continues to be peaceful and its people have learnt to make adjustments
for survival --- like Dhana Majhi
silently walking miles, carrying his dead wife on his shoulder or thousands
regularly fleeing homes for jobs of any
type in distant places like Surat, Cochin or Bengaluru. Then suddenly political
managers get active and a charade is raised about Chhattisgarh taking away
their share of Mahanadi water. Women take out processions with water pitchers
to pour water into the Mahanadi. Political workers stop Chhattisgarh bound
trains, to make a point, putting unwarranted strain on India’s federal fabric.
An avoidable refrain on jingoism is created . Other political forces in the
state look askance and plead for a united stand to protect the state’s interest
in case injustice has been done. BJD, however, opts to make the programme a
Party affair and keeps other political Parties out.
How exactly has Odisha, the state
downstream, been wronged is difficult to understand. The two states seem to
have different perceptions on the use of the mighty River that discharges over
twenty lakh cusecs of fresh water into the Bay of Bengal during monsoon—a
volume, at par with the monsoon discharge of the Ganga. While Chhattisgarh has embarked upon
judicious use of the abundant resource
of the River--- that originates from the state— Odisha, in sixteen years of the
BJD Government, has let the water either to flow into the sea or flood the
delta—the largest in the Indian peninsula . The 858 kilometre long River
traverses 286 kilometres in Chhatisgarh and then flows in Odisha for 572
kilometres before joining the Sea at Paradip. Out of its total catchment of
141,600 square kilometres, 52.9 % is in Chhattisgarh and 46.3% , in Odisha. Up
to Hirakud Dam, the River has a catchment of 83400 sq kms of which 89.9% is in
Chhattisgarh and 8.8%, in Odisha.
Mahanadi’s annual flows account for 59.16 Billion Cubic Metre ( BCM), of
which 29.90 BCM is from catchment in Odisha-- about 49% of the total water
availability.
The River holds unlimited possibility
for Odisha’s prosperity. After ten lakh Odias died of starvation one hundred
fifty years ago in the Odisha Famine of 1866, canal irrigation was introduced
using the water resource of the River. Thereafter, the massive Hirakud Dam was
commissioned in 1957. Second phase of Delta Irrigation expanding the irrigation
network came three decades later. A comprehensive project to tap the full hydro
electricity potential of the River (2000MW),
ensure optimum use of the River’s irrigation potential and also to
ensure complete flood control, was drawn up and the foundation stone for the Tikarpara Dam was laid by the Prime
Minister, Pandit Nehru. It had to be abandoned as people opposed it. The
project would have led to submersion of three towns and 1200 villages. Twenty
years later, in 1985, attempt was made to build yet another Dam, at Manibhadra,
downstream Tikarpara. This too had to be abandoned due to people’s opposition
to submersion of two towns and 273 villages. In 1999 another project was
formulated, for a Barrage at Subalaya. The proposed barrage was designed to
reduce the maximum flood peak of 17.4 lakh cusecs on the basis of 100 years
probability to only 8.7 lakh cusecs at the head of the Mahanadi delta. This
project would not result in submersion
of any village ; only73 villages would
remain below the flood level in the security of a high embankment, for a
maximum period of a little over six days. It may be mentioned that Cuttack city
remains below the high flood level for considerably longer periods almost every
year behind the protective earthen embankments. Why such a project has not been
taken up remains a mystery. The densely populated Delta remains exposed to
ravages of flood year after year.
Have the ongoing River related
projects in Chhattisgarh been injurious to Odisha’s interest? The issue needs
to be viewed in its entirety. One could argue that an upstream state could
block the lean season river flows and alter the river flow regime drastically
converting the River to a dry one, except during floods. It is, however,
nobody’s case that the during monsoon months the River would not have enough
water for Hirakud reservoir. In fact the reservoir, in its present capacity,
can hold only about 16% of the flow. What is critical is the non monsoon flow
on which various activities in Odisha depend, including power generation,
irrigation -- even hundreds of kilometres downstream, in the Delta, drinking
water, and use by industries.
The High level Technical Committee under
the chairmanship of the former CWC Chairman, Shri R. Jeyaseelan to study
various aspects of water usage for Hirakud Reservoir appointed in 2007 by
Odisha Government, had, inter alia, observed that the non monsoon average
annual inflow to the Reservoir between 1951 and 1981 has been 2.750 million
acre feet (MAF) whereas the same for the period between 1982 and 2006 has been
3.601 MAF. ( increase of 23.65%). Unless Odisha Government has any data to show
that after 2006, the non monsoon flow into the Hirakud Reservoir has
substantially come down; the available data would only indicate that there is
no need for panic.
Let us desist from using our Rivers
for politics. Let us not invent “Disputes”.
Widely articulated assertions that Dams and Barrages in Chhattisgarh
would make the River downstream go dry or affect flora and fauna in Chilka lake
or the Bhitarakanika and Gahiramatha sanctuaries only betray insufficient
knowledge on the River.
Now that both the Chief Ministers have
met and discussed on the River, it is hoped that peace and development would
emerge winner. Both the states have immense potential. People of both the
states have hundreds of years of close bonding. There is enough water to meet
the requirement of both the states. A joint Consultative mechanism under the
existing legal framework surely can be put in place to address genuine concerns
of both the states. Let the row not provide justification for continued
inaction over the River related irrigation and flood control projects in
Odisha. It is better Odisha left the River row behind and moved ahead.
28.09.2016
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