Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government and other political parties slammed the Centre for its alleged dilly-dallying in handing over the terms of reference of the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal to its chairman Justice A.M. Khanwilkar.

The Union water resources ministry on Tuesday handed over the terms of reference to Justice Khanwilkar.

The Centre had on March 12 issued a notification constituting the three-member tribunal to adjudicate the dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh over sharing of the river's water following a Supreme Court direction on January 23.

A release said water resources secretary U.P. Singh briefed Justice Khanwilkar about the river's profile, development of projects by various states and the dispute in sharing of its waters. He was briefed about legal provisions for adjudication.

Singh assured Justice Khanwilkar that the central government was taking all necessary steps for early functioning of the tribunal and sought his guidance on the roadmap for resolving the dispute, said the release.

However, the Odisha government strongly reacted over the alleged dilly-dallying by the Centre in making tribunal effectively operational.

Minister Surya Narayan Patro, who had represented Odisha at the regional conference of five eastern states (Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Bengal) having inter-state river disputes in Calcutta on Monday, had said after returning from the conference: "I put on record that they have put Odisha in such a precarious position that the posterity of the 14 districts on the Mahanadi river bank will find Odisha's main river only in a map, not in reality."

Congress chief whip Tara Prasad Bahinipati had said: "The Centre and the state government are both enacting drama on the issue."

On the contrary, BJP MLA Radharani Panda defended the Centre saying that it had handed over the terms of reference. "The state government is politicising the issue for electoral gains."

The tribunal would determine water sharing among basin states on the basis of its overall availability in the entire basin, contribution of each state, present utilisation of water resource in each state and the potential for future development, sources said.