Silt and mud dumped on Mahanadi riverbed. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, July 31: Controversy over disposal of silt and mud excavated from the moat around Barabati Fort has assumed a new dimension with Orissa High Court ordering for a halt to dumping them on Mahanadi riverbed.

The Mahanadi riverbed, along the Ring Road embankment near Gadgadia Ghat, had turned into mounds of sludge with dumping of nearly one lakh cubic metres of waste over past few months.

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had allowed Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) to undertake cleaning and renovation of the moat for introducing boating facilities as part of an integrated development plan to turn the fort area into a major tourist attraction. The development plan received financial assistance from the Centre under Urban Infrastructure Development Scheme for Small and Medium Towns (UIDSSMT) plan.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik had laid the foundation stone for the project on August 31 last year.

The civic administration, as decided by a technical committee constituting officials of the CMC and irrigation department, had planned to dump the excavated silt and mud in the low and hole-ridden tract of around 30 to 40 metres in the Mahanadi riverbed near the new Bali jatra ground.

But a controversy sparked off when contractors, assigned with the work order, violated the instructions and piled them up indiscriminately on the riverbed along the embankment.

“Corrective measures had been initiated by directing the contractors to shift the piles of silt to the designated spot,” a CMC official said. The civic administration had decided to recover from contractors all expenses incurred for corrective measure.

The issue reached high court on Friday when Chittaranjan Mohanty, a city-based social worker, sought judicial intervention against the “haphazard dumping” of silt and mud on the riverbed.

The two-judge bench of Justice B.P. Das and Justice M.M. Das directed the commissioner of the CMC to ‘immediately stop” dumping of excavated silt from Barabati Fort moat on the Mahanadi riverbed.

The bench was hearing PILs on civic problems in Cuttack city. The petitioner had alleged that nearly one lakh cubic metres of silt and mud excavated from the Barabati Fort had already been dumped on the riverbed in an indiscriminate manner.