Water as Odisha's Strategic Asset

In 2018, the Government of India constituted a tribunal to resolve a dispute between Odisha and Chhattisgarh over the waters of the Mahanadi river. Chhattisgarh had built barrages upstream that Odisha argued were reducing downstream flow and threatening Odisha's agriculture, water supply, and delta ecology. The Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal is still working through the case.

The Mahanadi dispute is worth examining not just as a water rights case but as a symptom of something larger: Odisha has not treated its water as a strategic asset. It has treated it as a condition, sometimes too much, sometimes not enough, and found itself surprised when other actors began actively claiming it.

That approach needs to change.

What Odisha actually has

Odisha is one of the most water-rich states in India by any reasonable measure.

The state's river network includes six major systems: the Mahanadi, Brahmani, Baitarani, Subarnarekha, Rushikulya, and Indravati. These rivers drain a combined catchment covering most of the state and carry an enormous volume of water through the monsoon season, water that, in the absence of storage and distribution infrastructure, passes through Odisha and reaches the Bay of Bengal, or crosses into neighboring states before it is used.

Odisha's coastline stretches approximately 480 kilometres along the Bay of Bengal. The state has one of India's major ports at Paradip, which handled 150 million metric tonnes of cargo in FY2024-25, the highest among all Indian major ports, significant potential for additional port development, and access to one of the most productive fishing zones on the eastern coast. The maritime dimension of Odisha's water endowment is as significant as the riverine dimension, and nearly as underdeveloped.

Annual rainfall across Odisha ranges from approximately 1,200 millimetres in the western districts to over 1,800 millimetres in the coastal belt, more than most of Odisha's landlocked neighbors receive.

And yet: the percentage of Odisha's agricultural land under irrigation remains below the national average. The same rivers that flood the delta districts in August leave farmers in Bolangir and Kalahandi dependent on monsoon timing in October. Odisha receives substantial rainfall and lets most of it flow away.

Odisha has more water than most Indian states. It irrigates a smaller share of its farmland than the national average. This is not a geography problem.

The flood-drought paradox

What most people outside Odisha understand about its water situation is the floods. Major events on the Mahanadi, Brahmani, and Baitarani rivers affect the delta districts, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Puri, with regularity. Odisha is among India's most flood-affected states, with significant events causing displacement and agricultural damage in bad years.

What is less understood is that the same state simultaneously faces drought stress in its western and southern interior districts, Bolangir, Nuapada, Kalahandi, Koraput, in cycles, precisely because the monsoon water that floods the coast does not reach these districts in sufficient quantity or reliability.

This paradox is not unusual in river basin hydrology. It is, however, a problem that infrastructure can solve. A state managing its water strategically would be doing two things simultaneously: capturing and storing peak monsoon flows to reduce flood damage in the coastal districts, and releasing stored water through canal and lift irrigation networks to supply the interior during the dry season. The engineering for this is understood. The storage and conveyance infrastructure that would enable it has been partially planned and inadequately built for decades.

The Mahanadi lesson

The Mahanadi dispute is instructive precisely because Odisha found itself in it as a downstream complainant rather than as a state that had already secured its share.

Chhattisgarh, landlocked and with its own water needs, built infrastructure upstream to hold and use Mahanadi water within its borders before it flowed to Odisha. From Chhattisgarh's perspective this was rational: their agricultural and industrial users needed water, and they had the upstream position to claim it. Odisha's objection was legitimate, the diversions reduce downstream flow that Odisha's agriculture and ecology depend on. But the underlying dynamic is that Chhattisgarh took an active position on water and built accordingly, while Odisha treated its downstream share as a given.

The lesson is not primarily that Odisha should be more aggressive in inter-state water negotiations, though that is part of it. The lesson is that water rights, like most strategic resources, accrue to whoever builds the infrastructure to claim and use them. A state that stores, distributes, and uses its rainfall and river flows within its own borders before they leave has both a stronger legal position and a stronger factual position than a state that lets water pass and then objects when upstream neighbors claim it first.

Three strategic applications

Water, treated as strategic infrastructure, opens three specific applications that Odisha has barely begun to develop.

The first is the agricultural transformation this site describes elsewhere: extending irrigation coverage to the interior districts, enabling a second crop season, reducing the rain-dependency that makes farm income in western Odisha a function of monsoon timing rather than farmer capability. The water paradox in Kalahandi is a localized version of a statewide infrastructure gap. The solution at state scale is the same, storage, conveyance, and distribution, at larger capital scale.

The second is inland water transport. The Mahanadi and Brahmani rivers are navigable for substantial stretches within Odisha. India's National Waterways Act 2016 designated several Odisha waterways as national waterways, creating a policy framework for their development. Inland water freight is dramatically cheaper per tonne-kilometer than road transport and significantly more energy-efficient. Odisha's major industrial corridors, steel in Angul and Jharsuguda, the port complex at Paradip, could be connected by waterway at capital costs lower than equivalent road or rail expansion. This is a calculation that makes economic sense. It has barely been attempted.

The third is pumped-storage hydropower. The Eastern Ghats, running through Odisha's interior, have the elevation differentials required for pumped-storage projects, reservoirs at different heights where water can be pumped upward using surplus renewable energy and released through turbines when power demand peaks. Pumped-storage hydro is currently the most cost-effective large-scale grid storage technology available, and India needs massive grid storage capacity as its renewable energy share grows. Odisha has the geography and the water resources to become a significant grid storage provider for the Indian power system. This opportunity requires a state that treats its water endowment as strategic infrastructure, not a weather event.

The governance change required

None of this happens through the current approach.

The reason Odisha has abundant water resources and underbuilt water infrastructure is not mysterious: water management is distributed across multiple state departments with overlapping mandates and limited coordination. It requires long time-horizon investment that produces diffuse benefits rather than visible political credit. And it has historically been managed as an engineering problem in specific project silos rather than as a strategic economic asset requiring coherent state-level direction.

Treating water as a strategic asset requires someone to own that frame, a coherent water strategy integrating agriculture, energy, transport, and environmental management into a single investment logic, sustained across election cycles.

Other states have done versions of this. Gujarat's extensive canal network is the result of strategic commitment sustained over decades. Tamil Nadu's water and coastal infrastructure has supported its industrial development. Andhra Pradesh's investment in irrigation has transformed its agricultural productivity.

Odisha has the raw material those states deployed. What it has not yet built is the strategic framework that converts raw material into durable economic advantage.

The rivers are running. The question is whether Odisha decides what to do with them.

Manas Majhi grew up in Junagarh, Kalahandi. He writes about opportunity, development, and the systems that distribute both. He is the founder of Majhi Group and Majhi OS.

See also: The Water Paradox: Why Kalahandi's Farms Fail When the Rivers Are Full, Paradip: The Port That Odisha Has Not Yet Figured Out How to Use, Agriculture Beyond Subsidies

Sources

Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal: Ministry of Jal Shakti, Government of India

Odisha Department of Water Resources

National Disaster Management Authority: Floods in India

National Waterways Authority of India

IRENA: Pumped Hydropower Storage Technology Brief

PIB: Paradip Port Retains No. 1 Position, 150.41 MMT in FY2024-25