SAMBALPUR: Even as BJD supremo and Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urged leaders from 19 districts through which Mahanadi river flows to reach out to the people over the issue to score political point over the BJP, the two-day 2nd Odisha River Conference was inaugurated here on Sunday. The conference has drawn together civil society organisations, river and water experts, academicians from across the country and community members from the Mahanadi basin work on building an Inter-State Cooperation Framework.
The conference will debate on issues like rights, governance, climate change, disasters, water security and pollution in six technical sessions, two general sessions and a community conclave. The conference aims at coming up with a set of recommendations for survival, rejuvenation and conservation of Mahanadi and other rivers.
Outlining the objective of the conference, Convenor of Water Initiative Odisha (WIO), Ranjan Panda, said the conclave will work to ensure that the rights of the river as an ecological entity are not snatched. He said both the States are treating Mahanadi as a commodity, not a natural resource and stressed on the need for comprehensive understanding and analysis of the impacts all the structures constructed upstream by Chhattisgarh will have on availability of water in the basin.
He said that the door of dialogue and co-operation between the two States on several issues that needs urgent attention should not be closed and barrages alone is not killing Mahanadi. “There are many other factors that need urgent intervention and our main concern should be on how to rejuvenate the ecological entity of Mahanadi.”
In his inaugural address, Vice-Chancellor of Sambalpur University Prof Deepak Behera announced that a research project dedicated to Mahanadi will be initiated by the university. He said a proper assessment of water availability is important to understand the challenges as well as measures should be suggested to solve them. He emphasised on a resource mapping involving communities of the basin to ensure their stake on the river.
Explaining that seeking a solution to the Mahanadi problem, “we should not have an Odisha-centric approach but a river- centric approach,” Prof Premanand Panda, who chaired the inaugural session, observed that rights of a river can be established when people are empowered to use water judiciously. He said that water rights is a part of human rights because when a river dies, a civilisation dies with it.
On the occasion, Jala Joddha Samman 2018 was conferred on renowned environmentalist, researcher and academician Prof Artabandhu Mishra, for his lifetime contribution in creating awareness on water conservation.
Similarly, Charmallik Anchalika Bikas Parishad, a federation of people’s organisations from Angul district, was given Ajira Bhagiratha Samman 2018 for their contribution in mobilising communities for conservation of water resources, forests and common grazing land.