Sambalpur: A Class X student here has written to Prime minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention to save the Mahanadi.

In his letter to Modi, the student, Amrita Patel, has said: "It is not just a river, it is the lifeline for crores of people living in Odisha."

Patel has also reminded Modi that Odias treat the Mahanadi as their mother.

The river, she wrote, provided drinking water to major towns and cities including Cuttack and Sambalpur. Several famous temples such as the Samaleswari temple and the Huma temple are situated on the banks of the Mahanadi.

"Today I am deeply pained to see Mahanadi as a crying mother. It has hardly any water left, it looks almost like a desert. People have to walk miles into the riverbed just to fetch a bucket of water. Whenever, I visit the riverbank these days, I feel as if my mother is crying for help," the letter reads.

Narrating her childhood experience, Patel tells the Prime Minist`er that when she was a kid, her mother used to take her to the riverbank. Both of them used to sit there for long hours and enjoy the ripples of the flowing water creating a soothing burbling sound.

They would watch people take a dip in the cold water, while small fearless kids jumped into the river from a little cliff to swim.

She used to find happiness in watching the fishermen rowing boats in the middle of the river. It made for a picturesque sight, especially during sunset.

"My beloved Prime Minister Sir, I am too young to understand the politics surrounding Mahanadi, but all I know is that Mahanadi is dying with each passing day and if it's not saved today, it will die forever and with it the hopes of lakhs of people for whom Mahanadi is a source of life, will also die," she wrote in her letter and requested Modi to look into the matter with all seriousness.