State Cabinet also fails; no future course on Mahanadi

Bhubaneswar, Sep 18: The so-called emergency State Cabinet
on Sunday failed to take any concrete decision on the State Government’s future
course of action after the Chhattisgarh Government refused to stop construction
work on Mahanadi river.

Even as people of the State were eagerly waiting to know the
State Government’s decisions vis-à-vis Mahanadi water sharing dispute with
Chhattisgarh, the Cabinet which met under chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen
Patnaik take seven to ten days to decide the Government’s stance on the issue.

“Since Chhattisgarh didn’t agree to stop work of ongoing
Mahanadi projects we are analysing legal angles to fight for Odisha’s interest.
Odisha Government will try its best to safeguard the interests of the people of
the State. The Government will take necessary action in 7-10 days. The Cabinet
has approved the decision of the Government on its future course of action,” said
Chief Secretary AP Padhi after the meeting.

Padhi, however, informed that a fact-finding team would be
constituted involving expert water resources engineers, judges,
environmentalists, and agriculture experts to collect every bit of data
regarding construction of barrages upstream Mahanadi in three months’
time. 

Meanwhile, both opposition parties, Congress and BJP,
severely termed the Government as “inefficient”.

“The State Cabinet failed to take decision even after the
failure of the tripartite meeting. Since Mahanadi issue is an inter-State
issue, the Chief Minister could have sought the Prime Minister intervention,
but didn’t,” he said.

Similarly, the BJP leader Sameer Mohanty said, “The State
Government had assured the people that it would take a decision at today’s
Cabinet meeting. But it didn’t take any decision. The BJD must not adopt this
dillydallying attitude and should tell people about the steps it would take in
the Mahanadi issue.”