Berhampur, April 24: Hundreds of villagers from Badigam and Sara in Gajapati district today gheraoed Vansadhara Water Disputes Tribunal chairman Justice Mukund Sharma and the other two members — D.N. Chaturvedi and Gulam Mohammad — for not listening to their grievances.

They villagers were angry when Justice Sharma refused to address a meeting on the Vansadhara riverbed organised by the people of these two villages.

The villagers were protesting against the construction of the Neradi and Gotta barrage by the Andhra Pradesh government on the river Vansadhara. They gheraoed the members of the tribunal while they were on the way to a place located between Badigam and Sara opposite Katragada in Andhra Pradesh. They raised slogans against the Andhra Pradesh government and the tribunal and stopped the vehicles of the tribunal members.

The chairman and members were rescued after Gajapati collector Basudev Bahinipati and superintendent of police C.S. Meena intervened.

They were on a visit to certain places in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh to study the ground realities in the project area and to listen to the arguments of both sides on this five-decade-old dispute between these two states over sharing water of the Vansadhara river.

The tribunal visited Neradi and Katragadda villages near Battili in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh and talked to the local people there yesterday. “Construction of barrages across the river by Andhra Pradesh has affected the villages in Odisha,” Odisha engineer-in-chief Baidhar Panda told the tribunal.

Justice Sharma has asked Odisha government to submit a report on the flooding and its impact on the villages before and after the construction of the Gotta barrage.

He said: “The tribunal will submit its report after completing visits in both states. The differences between the two sides were not serious. Efforts can be made to find an amicable solution to the water sharing dispute between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.”

Panda and chief engineer M.K. Misra argued before the tribunal that the construction of the barrage would lead to inundation of many villages. The dispute between Odisha and Andhra Pradesh began in the early 1990s when the latter attempted to build the Neradi barrage on the Vansadhara river 16km from Gunpur town in Odisha’s Rayagada district. Objections raised by Odisha prevented the Andhra Pradesh government from going ahead with the construction. However, they did build the Gotta barrage across the river.

The Odisha government had petitioned the Centre and the Supreme Court in 2006 to constitute a tribunal for equitable distribution of water from the Vansadhara river.