With Mahanadi river becoming a major bone of contention between BJD ruled Odisha and BJP ruled Chhattisgarh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday slammed the Odisha government for failing to harness Mahanadi river water.
The failure is despite the fact that the same government is there for past many decades.
Prime Minister Modi then went on to recount the achievements of his government at the Centre on completion of four years.
On the Mahanadi river issue, he said that state government had admitted in the Assembly that more than half of Mahanadi water flows into the Bay of Bengal.
Modi said the State Government did not cooperate with the Centre when it wanted to resolve the dispute through negotiation.
He went on to allege that even Union Water Resources Minister Nitin Gadkari had written a letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in this regard but Odisha Government did not come forward.
Modi also alleged that besides Mahanadi river, even other five rivers are not being properly utilized by the state government there.
The BJD then quickly came to rebut the claims of the Prime Minister.
When Gadkari took over as the Union Water Resources Minister, the case over the Mahanadi river water dispute filed by the Odisha Government in the Supreme Court was in hearing stage, BJD spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Pratap Deb told mediapersons here.
Besides, the Central minister agreed to formation of tribunal in Parliament but the Centre took a different stand in the court, he said.
