The Mahanadi River spans approximately 851 km, rising in Chhattisgarh and coursing through Odisha into the Bay of Bengal, draining a basin area of about 141,600 km² across five states. It’s among India’s most silt-rich rivers and powers crucial infrastructure like the Hirakud Dam, which controls floods, supplies irrigation to lakhs of hectares, and generates hydropower. The river’s distributaries nourish Chilika Lake, a Ramsar wetland of global importance. 

But the Mahanadi’s significance extends beyond its physical presence—it’s a focal point of interstate tension. Odishan concerns over upstream dams and barrages in Chhattisgarh catalyzed the 2018 establishment of a tribunal to equitably allocate its waters. Recently, both states have ramped up technical cooperation through weekly engineers-in-chief meetings—and civil society is mobilizing through initiatives like the Mahanadi Chetna Yatra and Mahanadi Parliament, aiming to build an inclusive basin-wide plan.

On the conservation front, the ‘Mahanadi Awakening Abhiyan’ (MAA) in Chhattisgarh targets de-siltation, riverbank rejuvenation, and eco-tourism along the river’s source stretch with scientific backing from IIT Madras. Pollution remains a troubling shadow—Gadagadi Ghat in Cuttack, for instance, was recently flagged for illegal dumping that violates National Green Tribunal norms.