CUTTACK: The Mahanadi seems to have issued a stern warning to Cuttack this year. It has begun to advance menacingly towards the city, eating through bed area by around 100 metres to draw close to the Ring Embankment. A new and more expansive course appears to be charted along the Cuttack city region as the river pushing inland to widen its flow zone. The expansion of river girth has been most evident from Chahata Ghat to the water sports facility near Hadia Patha. The river has drawn close to the embankment by over 100 metres along the 5- km stretch. Such has been the force that it has deposited all the eroded bed a little farther to create a sand island. The island has come up in the vicinity of the upcoming Maritime Museum, close to the barrage. The high volume of the eroded soil and sand could not have been pushed through the barrage breakers and thus deposited nearby. The development has got the Water Resources Department to sit up and take note even though it seeks to dismiss the issue as a natural phenomenon during high flood. The Secretary of the Water Resources Department is scheduled to visit the stretch to take stock of the situation along the Ring Embankment in the next few days. A thorough study of the river behaviour and conditions is expected to follow to chart a strategy to prevent further ingression of the river course, Department sources said. Experts have attributed the situation to heavy siltation of the riverbed so much as to not sustain the huge volume of water flow during the floods along with uncontrolled and unplanned construction activities in the river bed zone as well as indiscriminate dumping of waste into the river. The river bed has risen substantially over the years due to lack of dredging and desiltation.The river has begun to push into the land from both sides. Not only that it is causing more flood ingress into the mainlands in areas upstream of the barrage. Breaches and submergence of more areas of Athagarh and Banki sub-divisions in this floods are an indication, irrigation department officials themselves have confessed. The construction of wide and expansive concrete barriers and walls of the intake well for supply of water through the pipeline of IOCL oil refinery project is also cited as reason for the changing course of the Mahanadi. The Irrigation Department officials have emphasised on desiltation of the river bed along Cuttack city. They also indicated towards increasing the length of the spur over which the water sports and amusement facility has come up.
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