Bhubaneswar: The Centre has extended the tenure of the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal for a period of two years till April 13, 2026.
With this, the tribunal has been allowed two more years for submission of its report or decision on the adjudication of the inter-state river water dispute.
In a notification, the Jal Shakti Ministry said the tribunal was required to submit its report and decision as required under sub-section (2) of section 5 of the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956 within a period of three years by March 11, 2021. But as it could not submit the report within the deadline due to unavoidable reasons, it had requested the Centre for an extension to do so.
An extension was granted for two years till March 11, 2023. But the Tribunal could not meet the deadline due to Covid-19.
The tribunal then requested the Central Government to consider the period from March 2020 to June 2021 to be non-functioning an embellishing due to Covid-19 pandemic and requested for another extension.
The Ministry has now extended the time-frame till April 13, 2026 for MWDT to submit its report under sub-section 2 of section 5 of Interstate River Disputes Act, 1956 (33 of 1956).
It may be mentioned that the Odisha government had filed a complaint with the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation (now Ministry of Jal Shakti) with a request to the Centre for adjudication of water disputes in respect of river Mahanadi and its basin between Odisha and Chhattisgarh and refer the complaint to the tribunal under Section 5(1) of the ISRWD Act, 1956.
Acting on the complaint, the Centre had constituted a Negotiation Committee for settlement of the dispute through negotiation. The committee submitted its report in May 2017. It mentioned that any further meetings of this committee would not be fruitful.
Accordingly, it was concluded that the dispute cannot be resolved by negotiation. Subsequently, the Centre constituted Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal on March 12, 2018.
