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Bhubaneswar, Nov 17: With only a day left for completion of a year to filing of statutory complaint, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday sought personal intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for setting up the tribunal to resolve Mahanadi water dispute between Orissa and Chhattissgarh.
It was the second such missive Patnaik has shot off to the PM over the Mahanadi issue as the Centre is yet to constitute the tribunal. “I would like to emphasise here that the timeline of one year for constitution of the tribunal for adjudicating the Mahanadi water dispute under Section 4(1) of the Interstate River Water Disputes (ISRWD) Act-1956, is getting over November 18, 2017. However, the Union government has not yet constituted the tribunal despite my repeated requests over last one year,” Patnaik wrote.
According to the provision of ISRWD Act-1956, if the Central government felt a water dispute could not be resolved by negotiations, it must have to set up a water disputes tribunal for adjudication of the issue within one year from the date of receipt of such a request.
The Central government is supposed to constitute the tribunal before November 19 as the state government had filed the statutory complaint November 19 last.
“In my letter dated 7th November, 2017, it was also brought to your kind notice that the Additional Solicitor General appearing for the Union of India in Original Suit filed by Orissa had appraised Supreme Court on 02.05.2017 that the Union Ministry of Water Resources has prepared a note for the decision of the Cabinet on constitution of the tribunal,” Patnaik has written.
At the last hearing on the suit October 9, the apex court has ordered that a notification be issued for setting up the tribunal by November 19, the CM pointed out and sought that the PM should personally intervene to ensure that the tribunal was constituted by Sunday.