Sambalpur: The 10th meeting of the inter-state sub-committee of the National Council for Dam Safety (NCDS) for Mahanadi river system was held at Burla on Friday. Technical experts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha took part in the meet.

The meeting, held under the chairmanship of planning and design chief of the state water resources department Gunadhar Mishra, mainly discussed in details the status, condition and operating procedure of the major dams and medium reservoirs in upstream of Hirakud.

Importance had been given to the sharing of data on rainfall, water level and inflow-outflow, discharge of water from all the major and medium reservoirs in Chhattisgarh.

Sharing of information related to flood forecasting, progress of installation of telemetry and identification of locations for development of infrastructures for the purpose were also discussed at the meeting.

Importance had also been given for installation of satellite phones by both the states to communicate regarding release of floodwater from the reservoir towards the downstream in Odisha.

The officials discussed the soil conservation measures in view of rapid siltation in Hirakud reservoir and subsequent reduction in storage capacity that had come to an alarming situation.

Soil conservation measures in the catchment areas were also discussed in the meeting, said official sources. Ninety per cent of the catchment areas of the Hirakud reservoir are located in Chhattisgarh, for which the officials insisted the Chhattisgarh counterparts to take soil conservation measures by adopting massive plantation programmes.

The last meeting was held at Raipur in Chhatishgarh in May last year.

The next meeting will also be held at Raipur next year.

Some thirteen senior officials - including chief engineer of dam safety Prafulla Swain, director of dam safety Ajoy Kumar Das, Hirakud dam chief engineer Jyotirmaya Rath and executive engineer Chinmaya Rout represented Odisha while chief engineer of Mahanadi project Sanjoy Bhagabat, Rabisankar river dam superintending engineer Kishan Singh and Mini Mata Beng river dam superintending engineer Lala Sankar Chandrakar represented Chhattisgarh.

Retired chief engineer Sudhakar Patri also attended the meeting as a technical expert.