Cuttack, May 4: The Central Water Commission has informed the Orissa High Court that the Centre will constitute a water dispute tribunal for adjudication of the Mahanadi water dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh if the two states are unable to settle it between themselves.

The commission, in an affidavit, said the central government had already constituted a negotiating committee to settle the dispute following the Odisha government's request for the formation of a water dispute tribunal.

The affidavit was filed on Tuesday in response to a PIL seeking direction to the Centre to constitute a water dispute tribunal for resolving the water dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh.

In the affidavit, executive engineer of the commission's eastern rivers division Chinmoy Mohanty said: "The constitutional provision and the Interstate River Water Disputes Act, 1956, envisages that when any request is received from any state government in respect of a water dispute and the central government is of the opinion that the water dispute cannot be settled by negotiations, the central government shall, within a period not exceeding one year from the date of receipt of such request, constitute a water disputes tribunal for the adjudication of the disputes."

"On receipt of the complaint of Odisha, the central government constituted a negotiation committee on January 19, 2017," the affidavit said. The state government had requested the central government to set up a water dispute tribunal in November last year.

In the petition, Barada Prasanna Patnaik, 78, a lawyer representing the Mahanadi Banchao Manch as convener, has sought the court's order restraining the Chhattisgarh government from proceeding with ongoing projects in the upstream of the Mahanadi and its tributaries till resolution of the dispute over sharing waters by the two states.

In his affidavit, Mohanty, however, said: "It is beyond the power/jurisdiction of the ministry of water resources since water is a state subject."

The PIL that was filed in September last year expressed apprehensions that the construction of six barrages on the Mahanadi basin and its tributaries undertaken by the Chhattisgarh government would badly affect the inflow of water into Hirakud dam when it was no the monsoon season.

"There is 52.9 per cent of drainage area of the Mahanadi basin in Chhattisgarh. The apprehension of the petitioner regarding the extent of use of water by Chhattisgarh shall be made clear once a detailed study of the water availability in the Mahanadi river is completed by National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee, as agreed upon by both the states," the commission official said in the affidavit.