Bhubaneswar: Odisha has now sought a 4-week time from Mahanadi water disputes tribunal to submit common information format. Meanwhile, the next hearing is scheduled on August 12.
The prayer was made on the first hearing on Tuesday after the Tribunal’s field visit to Chhattisgarh and Odisha recently.
The Mahanadi River Water Disputes Tribunal visited 30 locations in Odisha during its site inspection recently. The tribunal had earlier completed its field visit to Chhattisgarh in two phases from April 18 to May 3, 2023.
A senior official informed that the Tribunal had conducted site visits in two phases in both states and the case was listed for hearing today. Chhattisgarh has submitted 34 and Odisha has filed eight common format information. Odisha has not filed common format information as there is dispute whether the western catchment is part of Mahanadi basin or not.
The Mahanadi River, India’s sixth-largest, has become the subject of a bitter dispute between the States of Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
While the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal headed by Supreme Court judge Justice A.M. Khanwilkar completed its whirlwind inspections of infrastructure constructed over Mahanadi in Chhattisgarh earlier this week, Odisha is getting ready to convince the tribunal as to why it desperately needs river water for sustenance.
First, the Odisha government had drawn the attention of the Union Government to protect its interest and ultimately filed a statutory complaint. Subsequently, Odisha filed a suit at Supreme Court on the matter of Mahanadi water disputes. On the final hearing of this suit on January 23, 2018, the Apex Court directed the Union Government to constitute a tribunal. Accordingly, the Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation constituted the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal (MWDT) on March 12, 2018 under Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956.
