The Mahanadi dispute with Chhattisgarh has been delayed for a very long time in resolving the issue to which the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged that the issue is being used for political gain and, the delay is been made deliberately by the Odisha Government.
Regarding the issue, Jayanarayan Mishra, BJP MLA stated that Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has never uttered a single word on the Mahanadi water dispute; rather he is using the issue to gather votes. There have been around 19 hearings but Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal has failed to finalize anything to resolve the matter and unfortunately, Odisha has failed to get any notable benefits from the panel.

Santosh Singh Saluja, Congress MLA has also alleged that the Mahanadi Dispute tribunal will turn to three years but Odisha Government has not yet come with a permanent solution or even tried to resolve the issue and with this Odisha has not got any significant benefit from it. With the dispute hanging around for so long time, this is a complete failure of the state government.
But, Debi Prasad Mishra, BJD MLA, has denied the allegations while stating that the matter should not be politicized to gain political scores. All the efforts are been made to resolve the problem and the tribunal is acting according to the process. He further informed that they are yet to get the interim stay order which they had demanded earlier.

He added that people should stop politicizing the matter and the opposition should tell them where the Odisha Government terminated in resolving the issue.
Over the release of Mahanadi river water to the Hirakud Dam, Odisha and Chhattisgarh have been antagonistic over a long period. Even a series of meetings between the two stated over the long time dispute is yet to come to any final result. Earlier the Odisha Government requested the Central Government to form a tribunal under Section 4 (1) of the ISRWD Act, 1956 which will help to resolve the dispute with Chhattisgarh over Mahanadi River Water to Hirakud.
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