Odisha Mulls Construction Of 7 Barrages On Mahanadi Downstream

Bhubaneswar: In the wake of the ongoing row with Chhattisgarh over sharing of Mahanadi river water, the Odisha government is planning to construct seven barrages on the downstream of the river between Hirakud and Paradip and 22 mini barrages and anicuts on its tributaries and distributaries.

Announcing this at a press briefing here on Saturday, secretary, Water Resources, Pradip Jena said the government is working to prepare a roadmap to stop the surplus Mahanadi water which is drained into the sea.

“Construction of these projects would meet the requirement for drinking water and irrigation,” Jena added.

Notably, chief minister Naveen Patnaik, in a statement in the State Assembly, had said that 52 percent of Mahanadi water is drained into the Bay of Bengal.

Of the 48,732 million cubic metres of Mahanadi water which flows through Odisha, the state is able to utilize only 48 percent of (22,948 million cubic metres) of water while the remaining 25,783 million cubic metres of water is drained into the sea.

Taking this into consideration, the state government has planned to construct barrages and anicuts in the downstream of the river to stop the river water from flowing into the sea so that it would be able to utilize it for irrigation and meet the drinking water requirement.