“The party, which avoids such an all-party meeting, is not good for the State”.
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Sambalpur: As a ray of hope in Mahanadi river water dispute between Odisha and Chhatisgarh today both the states agreed upon constituting and Joint Control Board and laid emphasis on information sharing.
Bhubaneswar: The ruling BJD on Wednesday found itself isolated after all political parties, including BJP, ignoring their ideological differences, attended an all-party meeting on the raging Mahanadi waters issue, convened by the Congress here. The CWC has also remained silent on this issue and helped the illegal activities of Chhattisgarh government, the memorandum said.
The meeting also resolved to set up a joint committee comprising representatives from different parties and organisations within seven days.
It was also decided in the meeting that industries sourcing water from the Mahanadi in Odisha be directed by the State government to create their own storage facility to meet their requirements. “The BJD has made a laughing stock of itself by skipping the all-party meeting though it boasts of protecting the interests of the state”.
On the other hand, the BJP criticised the BJD government over its claim that it was completely in the dark about the Kelo project in Chhattisgarh. “But, the fact remained that the letter was issued by Chhattishgarh government on March 31, 2016 and we received it on April 18, 2016”. Senior BJP leader Bijoy Mohapatra, who attended the meeting, said the state government should immediately release a White Paper on the Mahanadi crisis. “The party has made a decision to continue their stir for 100 days if the neighbouring state does not stop anti-Odisha projects on the river”, he said.
“It was not at all an all party meeting as claimed by Mishra”.
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Stating that there was a meeting of the CWC in January 2009 in which the Kelo project on Mahanadi had been cleared by the CWC, Padhi pointed out that the state government was not even invited to the meeting for consultation as a co-basin state.
