Mahanadi row: C’garh Minister’s visit to Odisha’s Paradip raises eyebrows

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Paradip, Sep 21:

While the BJD today submitted a memorandum to the President of India seeking his directions to the Union government for stopping ongoing illegal constructions on upstream of Mahanadi by the Chhattisgarh government, in an interesting development a minister of the latter along with two others visited Paradip today to study the geographical location of the river’s mouth.

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The Minister’s visit has raised eyebrows in the political circles here.

The trio is learnt to have collected information on Mahanadi river mouth from various sources and left for Chhattisgarh today. The trio even visited the fishing harbour adjoining the river mouth and discussed with fisher folk there.

According to reports, Chhattisgarh’s Village Industries Minister Chandrasekhar Pandey, Chhattisgarh Sahitya Sansad member Vidya Bhushan Satpathy and another person who had come with them had visited the Mahanadi river mouth at 10 AM. The trio studied the geographical location of the river mouth. Here they held discussions with some fishermen in private. Later they visited the harbour area of Paradip Port. The tour programme of the Minister from the neighbouring state was kept a complete secret. Police were informed only an hour before the Minister’s visit.

However, Pandey has said that it was not an official visit while clarifying that he had come to discuss with Odisha’s sculptors.

On the Mahanadi dispute, Pandey had said that whatever decision the two Chief Ministers will take will be correct.

However, Satpathy who was more vocal on the subject said: “Construction of barrages in Chhattisgarh will cause no damage to Odisha. Nobody can stop the natural flow of water. Only at the time of floods its flow can be checked for a while which would result in removing the fury of floods in Odisha. Some people are doing politics over the issue without properly understanding it.”

On the other hand, political circles here are eyeing the neighbouring state Minister’s visit with suspicion.

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