BHUBANESWAR: After ruling BJD and Congress, senior BJP leader Bijay Mohapatra today today raised questions over the formation of the negotiation committee by the Centre to resolve the Mahanadi river water dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
"The negotiation committee formed by the Water Resources Ministry cannot resolve the ongoing dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh," Mohapatra, who had also opposed inclusion of Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh in the list of star campaigners of the party for the panchayat polls, said. "There was no need for the Water Resources Ministry to constitute the Negotiation Committee as it would in no way resolve the Mahanadi dispute," Mohapatra told media persons here.
The Ministry of Water Resources constituted a negotiation committee on January 19 to assess availability and utilisation of water of Mahanadi river and its tributaries. The committee will also examine existing water sharing agreements on river Mahanadi and will consider claims of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jharkhand regarding availability and utilisation of waters of these rivers.
The senior leader said after failure of the meetings between the chief ministers and chief secretaries of the two state, the Prime Minister should have convened a meeting or he should have initiated steps to set up an inter-state river water tribunal. "After the failure of talks between the chief ministers of the two states, the Odisha Government in a letter to the Water Resources ministry on November 21 last year had proposed formation of the tribunal.
Since talks between the two states have failed, formation of the tribunal is the only way out for the Centre," he said. Mohapatra said the Centre, instead of finding a better way to resolve the issue, is trying to make it more complicated.
Formation of an inter-state tribunal can resolve the dispute, he said and added that all states would abide the decision of such a body. He said the negotiation committee will act against the interest of Odisha. Asked about the visit of the BJP National President Amit Shah to the state on Friday, Mohapatra said neither he had any information about the visit nor any leader of the party discussed about the visit with him.