Bhubaneswar, Aug. 9: BJP leader Bijoy Mohapatra today urged the state government to suggest to the Centre to form a river board instead of the proposed joint control board to resolve the Mahanadi water-sharing dispute with Chhattisgarh.

Mohapatra's stance is at variance with BJP leader and Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan, who has been arguing in favour of joint board.

Talking to reporters, Mohapatra said: "The difference between a joint control board and a river board is that a joint control board is a toothless body and has no powers to enforce its decision. The river board, according to provision of the River Boards Act, 1956, however, enjoys constitutional powers and can force states to accept its suggestions and recommendations on water sharing."

Mohapatra's suggestion came in the wake of Pradhan's statement criticising Odisha for not agreeing to the proposal to have a joint control board at the meeting in New Delhi on July 29 summoned at the behest of the ministry of water resources. Pradhan's statement was later disputed by the BJD, which said the state government had not rejected the idea but sought more time consider it.

Mohapatra today said: "Those who are arguing in favour of a joint control board are working against the state's interests. They don't know anything about the water sharing issue of the Mahanadi river or about the 1983 agreement between the then Madhya Praesh and Odisha governments."

Former irrigation minister Mohapatra, who launched the Mahanadi Save campaign in 2012 after the state government had agreed to provide water from the river to industrial units, also targeted his party's Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh. "The statements made by him to expedite the ongoing projects on the Mahanadi and its tributaries have aggravated the situation. The Chhattisgarh government must immediately stop all construction activities," he said.

He was critical of statements made by Chhattisgarh's water resources minister Brij Mohan Agarwal, who had been maintaining that Odisha would not be affected by their projects.

Based on the information received from the Chhattisgarh Assembly, he said: "The Chhattisgarh government is constructing nearly nine barrages. The Mahanadi water will be utilised for the industrial purposes. If more projects come up, power production, irrigation and supply of drinking water in Odisha will be severely hit."

He suggested that along with the river board, an integrated rule curve should be evolved covering both upper catchment and lower reaches of the Mahanadi river to ensure that Odisha got its due share of water. "As the Chhattisgarh government has built nine barrages and three dams and is planning more projects, Odisha is unlikely to get sufficient water. Its major canals - the Baragarh canal, Sasan canal, Taladanda and the Machhagaon canal - will be affected," he said.

While Mohapatra held centre stage here, a 12-member BJD delegation, led by its Rajya Sabha member Prasanna Acharya, today visited the Kelo and Arpa project areas in Chhattisgarh to assess the ground situation. However, former chief minister Ajit Yogi's Janata Congress members showed black flags to the BJD team.

In Bhubaneswar, the committee, formed on the Mahanadi issue by the all-party meet called by Opposition leader Narasingha Mishra on August 3, today decided to submit a memorandum to the governor tomorrow demanding the formation of a river board to resolve the dispute.

On the legal front, Orissa High Court today directed the Centre and the state to produce all records and communications pertaining to projects on the Mahanadi that the Chhattisgarh government was implementing.

The division bench of Chief Justice Vineet Saran and Justice B.R. Sarangi passed the order on an application on a PIL seeking direction to form a water dispute tribunal for resolving the dispute between Odisha and Chhatisgarh over Mahanadi waters.