Growing Industrialisation and its Cumulative Impacts: Insights from the Mahanadi River Basin

Abstract

The Mahanadi river faces large-scale ecological disaster due to a variety of anthropogenic stresses. A prime factor is rapid industrialisation and coal-fired power generation plans that are being encouraged by the states of Odisha and Chhattisgarh. These are not only impacting the flow of the river’s waters and damaging the health of its basin but have also made the area susceptible to climate change. The industrial growth-based development has already polluted the Mahanadi to an irrecoverable extent. The over-allocation of water to industries has adversely effected the region’s irrigation and agriculture leading to a bitter contestation between industry and the farming community. As this comment emphasises, both state governments are taking advantage of the Mahanadi river for industrial use to maximise revenue generation but are at the same time are being insensitive to the adverse environmental and ecological consequences that such exploitation will surely lead to.