Is Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi misleading the people of the state about the status of the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal (MWDT)? On July 30, he announced that Odisha’s dispute with Chhattisgarh over its share of the Mahanadi River water, which has been simmering for more than eight years in the inter-state water disputes tribunal, will be resolved by Deepawali through mutual negotiations.He made this observation after a meeting with his Chhattisgarh counterpart Vishnu Deo Sai and the Union Jal Shakti Minister, C.R. Patil.But then a similar assurance – that the dispute would be resolved within three months – was given to the people of Odisha by both the Union minister and Majhi soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in the state in June 2024.Since then, Pitambar Acharya, Advocate General, Odisha, has been giving the same assurance almost every month. More than two years have passed since the Majhi government came to power, but the issue remains unresolved and as contentious as before.The tribunal itself has remained a mute spectator all this while. The question arises: what is the MWDT doing if Odisha is trying to resolve the matter through direct negotiations with Chhattisgarh, mediated by the Union government and its agencies?Is this tribunal, constituted more than eight years ago on the directions of the Supreme Court, following an application by the previous Odisha government, a meaningless exercise? In that case, why did the governments of both states set it up at enormous cost to the public exchequer and then keep it running?On April 17, 2018, the Union government handed over the Mahanadi dispute to the newly-formed MWDT’s first chairperson, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar (right), after the negotiations it facilitated “were not successful” and the Supreme Court ordered it to set up the tribunal instead. U.P. Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Water Resources Left), handing over the reference. Source: Press Information Bureau.How the dispute aroseThe history of the tribunal shows what a colossal waste it has been. The government of Odisha headed by Naveen Patnaik had first filed a complaint with the Union government under Section 3 of the Inter-State Water Disputes Act, 1956, on November 19, 2016. It said that the Chhattisgarh government was illegally preventing adequate flow of Mahanadi waters to Odisha.The allegation stemmed from the Chhattisgarh government constructing six industrial barrages over the Mahanadi basin, which Odisha claims had a disastrous impact on the lean-season flow to Odisha, which lies downstream of the basin.The reduced flows due to these barrages severely hurt Odia farmers and fisheries, according to both the government of Odisha and activists in both states. They say that it also severely affects the transportation of sediment and overall deltaic health. Coastal aquifers were damaged due to the lower freshwater discharge, and their salinity quotient rose.However, the Chhattisgarh government has argued that these barrages are meant for harvesting monsoon rainwater and augmenting groundwater and do not obstruct the flow of Mahanadi water – though environmentalists and activists challenge and dispute this position. [we must publish their point of view – they claim huge dependence on this basin.]After the Odisha government’s November 2016 complaint, the Union government engaged the Central Water Commission (CWC) and set up a negotiation committee that tried to mediate between Odisha and Chhattisgarh to find an amicable solution. But on September 17, 2017, the Union Jal Shakti Ministry said the mediation effort had failed.The Odisha government had refused to attend any of the three meetings called for the purpose. Interestingly, the Union government had at the time asked the Supreme Court to direct Odisha government to participate in mediations and had also opposed forming a tribunal.At the time, the BJP led by Narendra Modi was in power at the Union.However, after the Supreme Court ruled in favour of forming a tribunal under the ISRWDA’s provisions, the Union government had notified the creation of the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal on March 12, 2018. Justice (retd.) A.M. Khanwilkar was its chairman and justices (retd.) Ravi Ranjan and Indermeet Kaur Kochhar were appointed the members. While it was initially set up for three years, but has been getting extension after extension despite making no progress.Flurry of meetings, no changeThe status of the dispute today is almost what it was in April 2018 despite the tribunal having held close to 60 hearings and 20 technical committee meetings.By 2019, the tribunal was already emphasising that dialogue was a better route to resolving this conflict. Ironically, even in its last hearing held on July 23, 2026, the tribunal said the same thing: that the CWC and Union Jal Shakti Ministry should take initiatives to amicably resolve the issue between the two states.In a February 9, 2019 order, excerpted above, the MWDT records that Odisha and Chhattisgarh are “willing to interact” to find an “amicable arrangement”. If they fail, at the following hearing on March 9, 2019, a date for the tribunal’s own ruling would be fixed. Source: MWDT, on Union Jal Shakti Ministry web site.In a July 23, 2026, order, excerpted above, the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal (MWDT) says that some issues between Odisha and Chhattisgarh have “already been settled” by the two states and that “remaining issues” would be part of a process in which the Ministry of Jal Shakti and Central Water Commission would intervene. Source: MWDT, on Union Jal Shakti Ministry web siteHowever, the tribunal was constituted with a mandate only after all efforts to arrive at a negotiated and mediated settlement had failed. If the tribunal had failed to resolve the issue legally, should it not seek its own dissolution instead of seeking extension after extension?Instead, Advocate General Acharya has only repeatedly said that negotiations for a settlement between Odisha and Chhattisgarh were “under consideration”. In September 2025, Acharya said at a press conference that “No water dispute cases have been easily resolved through tribunals in the country. Legal battles are fought only to patronise lawyers.”In July this year, he said the states had agreed to pursue “an amicable settlement” of the dispute. He also said in July 2026 that “There is a strong possibility that a formula for resolution will emerge within two months.”Now, the chief minister of Odisha has lent his voice to the shenanigans, saying the dialogue process should be resumed. He has written to Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, also of the BJP, proposing the CWC’s return to the negotiation table between the states. Apparently, Chhattisgarh has welcomed this too, saying the proposal is “under consideration”, although it has maintained a cryptic silence for all these years – after all, the impasse suit its interests.The truth is, unless legally mandated, the upper riparian state of Chhattisgarh would not voluntarily release more water for Odisha as it has entered into agreements to provide adequate water to several large industrial houses.Only a Mahanadi Award – like the Cauvery Award finalised by the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal for fair distribution of water, primarily between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka – can force Chhattisgarh to release a fair share of water to Odisha. Strangely, the Mahanadi tribunal is unable or unwilling to issue such an award.So is it a conspiracy of all parties involved having a vested interest in keeping the Mahanadi tribunal alive but in a defunct state?A look at the specificsIn the first half-a-dozen meetings held after the constitution of the tribunal, the Chhattisgarh government kept saying that it was examining the authenticity of Odisha’s complaint regarding the reduced flow of water from the Mahanadi River.Thereafter, Chhattisgarh took the next six months (over which six more tribunal hearings were held) to submit its counter-claims.Then came the tribunal’s turn to act. But it remained a listening post. The claims and counter-claims continued for several more hearings. Then Chhattisgarh took the specious plea that some inadvertent errors and omissions had crept into its previous submissions. It took the next few months to rectify them.When it was Odisha’s turn to respond, it furthered the delaying process: it said that there were many typographical errors in its submissions to the tribunal. Next, it took a couple of months to set them right.Then, as if it was a part of joint strategy, Chhattisgarh came up with the plea that it would add some appendices to its documents. This took another couple of tribunal hearings. Then Odisha made a similar plea – it wanted to change some of the appendices it had earlier submitted. This process took another two hearings.The tribunal happily gave extension after extension after these requests.In a March 2019 order, excerpted above, the MDWT allows Chhattisgarh government to replace certain documents in its very first written submissions in 2018 and observes that preliminary discussions between high-level officials of the governments had failed. The tribunal deferred its pronouncement of an interim order since both states said they were still open to an amicable resolution. Source: MWDT, on Union Jal Shakti Ministry web siteHow the first six years passedThree other states were made party to this dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh: Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra, as the Mahanadi River Basin drains portions of these states. But with the principal contestants lackadaisical, these side players showed no alacrity either. They took months to submit their respective affidavits to the tribunal.On August 8, 2020, four years into the tribunal’s formation, it was decided that a “common format” would be prepared for Odisha and Chhattisgarh governments to provide the data the tribunal needed, on the lines of how previous tribunals functioned. This format could never be finalised. Source: MWDT, on Union Jal Shakti Ministry web site.Finally, the time to produce witnesses and record their evidence arrived, in September 2023. Odisha, the first in line, promised in October it would submit the witness list by November. On November 28, the witness arrived, but now the Chhattisgarh government’s counsel said he needed time to take instructions from the government before he cross-examined this witness. The matter was posted for January 2024.On the date of recording of evidence, the Chhattisgarh counsel said he was not yet ready and requested another deferral to the following month. The Odisha government and the tribunal readily agreed to all these delaying tactics.An order of the MWDT on September 6, 2026 acknowledged that “hardly any substantial progress” had been made in its proceedings over seven years. Source: MWDT, on Union Jal Shakti Ministry web site.When the next hearing finally arrived, the Chhattisgarh government representative pleaded before the tribunal that the main counsel was unwell and could not make it to Delhi. The state government’s battery of half-a-dozen advocates apparently did not have the briefing to cross-examine the witness. So why did all these lawyers from Chhattisgarh travel from to attend every tribunal hearing in Delhi if only the chief counsel had the briefing?These are just glimpses of how the Mahanadi tribunal whiled away its time for the first six years from inception in 2018 to mid-2024.The next two years of the tribunalIn June 2024, Naveen Patnaik government lost the election and a BJP government led by Mohan Majhi took office. Advocate General Acharya now tells the tribunal that Odisha would amicably settle the water dispute with Chhattisgarh through direct negotiations – it simply didn’t need the tribunal involved.At this point, the farce of a legal determination of the respective awards to Odisha and Chhattisgarh should have come to an end. After all, Odisha, the complainant state, had said it did not need the services of the tribunal anymore.But there was still some hay to make at the state’s expense.Justice Khanwilkar resigned in March 2024 as the tribunal’s chairman, leaving the body vacant at the helm for nine months. This was another opportunity for the Union government to wind up the tribunal. Instead, it chose to keep the tribunal alive – yet defunct – for nine more months.Then, under pressure from the two tribunal members as well as the disputing states, in December 2024, the Union appointed a new chairperson, Justice (retd.) Bela Trivedi.A travel assignmentIn February 2026, the tribunal worked out a plan to visit Odisha and Chhattisgarh, primarily to familiarise the new chairperson, as the other members had already visited the disputing sites. It was to last from February 26 to March 2, followed by the Chhattisgarh leg of the journey.Information shared with Pradeep Pradhan, a Right to Information (RTI) activist from Odisha, provides a glimpse of how government agencies make money on the sly. In its response, the government revealed that the five-day visit to Odisha of the chairperson, two members of the tribunal and a handful of officials to the designated spots on the Mahanadi Basin cost Rs 2.41 crore.The government’s response says that it spent Rs 1.46 crore on the visit of the tribunal to Hirakud Dam alone. A break-up provided by the government of just this sojourn shows Rs 56 lakh spent on hotel accommodation, Rs 5.30 lakh on travel and Rs 85 lakh was paid to an event management company named M.M. Event Management.Another Rs 96 lakh was spent on the tribunal’s visit to a couple of spots in the Lower Mahanadi Basin. However, the government declined to share a breakup of this cost.Indeed, this was not a new phenomenon. The Patnaik government had spent more than Rs 5 crore on a ten-day visit of Justice Khanwilkar, Justice Ranjan and Justice Kaur and their team in 2023. Of this, Rs 1.85 crore was spent on accommodation and food, Rs 1.87 crore on tents at inspection sites, Rs 1.33 crore on transportation and logistics.Is it all going unnoticed?Sudarshan Das, convenor of Mahanadi Bachao Andolan, a citizens’ collective and pressure group, says the governments would have spent less if they had facilitated the tribunal’s visit to an expensive Western European destination.The Mahanadi tribunal has become a wasteful burden for the taxpayer. The Union government bears the entire expenses of this comatose tribunal. Five states – Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Maharashtra – have routinely sent large contingents of lawyers and officials every month for its meetings and hearings at Delhi with zero impact.Odisha is the biggest abuser of the process, which has sent almost a dozen lawyers accompanying the Advocate General month after month.The term of the tribunal was to end in April 2026, when it issued a “last chance” to both states to resolve the issue. But Odisha and Chhattisgarh jointly appealed to the Union government for another extension of its term. The government of India readily obliged, giving it another nine months, until early next year, when it will be close to a decade old.This farcical state of affairs of the tribunal will continue till it is finally wound up.Nalini Ranjan Mohanty is a senior journalist and the former Editor of Hindustan Times, Patna.