Godavari River and Mahanadi River: East-Flowing Peninsular Rivers

East-Flowing Peninsular Rivers and the Logic of Their Courses

Peninsular Drainage and the Western Ghats Water Divide

The two rivers belong to the east-flowing peninsular rivers, the large streams of the Deccan plateau that rise near or behind the Western Ghats and cross the plateau to enter the Bay of Bengal. The Western Ghats run close to the western coast and act as the water divide. Rivers on the seaward side of the divide are short rivulets that join the Arabian Sea, while the major peninsular rivers discharge into the Bay of Bengal. Most of the major peninsular rivers flow from west to east, and the Narmada and the Tapi are the exceptions that flow west.

The principal east-flowing systems of the peninsula are the Mahanadi, the Godavari, the Krishna and the Kaveri. Smaller independent rivers lie between them, such as the Vamsadhara, which flows between the Rushikulya and the Godavari through Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, and the Pennar, which rises in the Nandi Hills of Karnataka and reaches the sea in Nellore district.

The peninsular drainage system is older than the Himalayan one, which shows in the broad, graded, shallow valleys and the maturity of its rivers. Peninsular rivers have fixed courses, almost no meanders and non-perennial flow, because they depend on the monsoon and have no glacier to feed them in the dry months.

Why the Peninsular Rivers Turn East While the Narmada Turns West

Three events in the distant past shaped the present drainage of peninsular India. The western flank of the peninsula subsided and went under the sea in the early Tertiary period, which upset the symmetrical plan of rivers on either side of the original watershed. The upheaval of the Himalayas bent the northern flank of the peninsular block down and caused trough faulting, and the Narmada and the Tapi flow in these trough faults. Finally, a slight tilt of the peninsular block from the north-west towards the south-east gave the whole drainage its orientation towards the Bay of Bengal.

The trough-fault origin also explains a difference between the two groups. The Narmada and the Tapi fill their rift valleys with their own debris, so they build almost no alluvial or deltaic deposits, while the east-flowing rivers build deltas at their mouths. The Narmada is 1,312 km long and the Tapi 724 km long, and both reach the Arabian Sea.

Godavari and Mahanadi Compared at a Glance

The two rivers differ in size more than in kind. The Godavari is the largest peninsular river system, with a catchment of 3.13 lakh sq km, while the Mahanadi drains about 1.42 lakh sq km; in water potential and flood-producing capacity the Mahanadi ranks second to the Godavari among peninsular rivers. Both rise inland, both are monsoon-fed, and both end in a delta with several distributaries. In order of length, the large peninsular rivers are the Godavari (1,465 km), the Krishna (1,401 km), the Narmada (1,312 km), the Mahanadi (851 km), the Kaveri (800 km) and the Tapi (724 km).

Mahanadi River System

Source, Length and Basin of the Mahanadi

The Mahanadi rises from a pool about 6 km from Farsiya village near Sihawa in Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh and flows 851 km to the Bay of Bengal. Its basin of 1,41,589 sq km is nearly 4.3 per cent of the geographical area of India and lies mainly in Chhattisgarh and Odisha, with small parts in Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. About 53 per cent of the basin lies upstream, in Chhattisgarh and the small Madhya Pradesh part, and 47 per cent downstream in Odisha, so the river is shared between an upstream and a downstream state.

Some references give the Mahanadi as about 900 km long with a basin of about 1.32 lakh sq km; the figures above are those of the official basin data.

The basin is bounded on the north by the Central India hills, on the west by the Maikala range, and on the south and east by the Eastern Ghats. It has four natural regions: The northern plateau, the Eastern Ghats, the central table land through which the river and its tributaries run, and the fertile coastal plain that is the delta. Red and yellow soils, mixed red and black soils, laterite soils and deltaic soils are found. The basin has a culturable area of about 7.99 million hectares, about 4 per cent of the culturable area of the country.

The river carries a hydroelectric potential assessed at 627 MW at 60 per cent load factor. Its urban and industrial centres include Raipur, Durg and Cuttack, the iron and steel plant at Bhilai, aluminium factories at Hirakud and Korba, and a paper mill near Cuttack.

Mahanadi Tributaries on the Left and Right Bank

The Seonath, the Hasdeo, the Mand and the Ib join the Mahanadi from the left, while the Ong, the Tel and the Jonk join it from the right. The Seonath joins in the upper reach. The Jonk and the Hasdeo join before the river enters Odisha, which it does after covering about half of its total length. The Ib flows into the Hirakud reservoir, and the Ong and the Tel join below the dam, the Tel at Sonepur.

Six other small streams between the Mahanadi and the Rushikulya drain directly into Chilika Lake and are counted as part of the basin.

Course Through Satkosia Gorge to the Cuttack Delta

For the first 100 km the Mahanadi flows north as a narrow river, its valley hardly 500 to 600 m wide, and drains the Raipur area. After the Seonath joins, it turns east. Below Hirakud it skirts the boundary of Baudh district and forces a way through ridges and ledges in a series of rapids until it reaches Dholpur, where the rapids end and the river cuts through the Eastern Ghats in the 64 km Satkosia Gorge. The gorge ends at Badamul in Nayagarh district.

The river enters the Odisha plains at Naraj, about 14 km from Cuttack, where a barrage regulates the flow into the delta. Just before Cuttack it gives off a large distributary, the Kathjori, and the city stands on the spit between the two channels. The Kathjori throws off the Kuakhai, Devi and Surua, which fall into the Bay of Bengal in Puri district, and the main river reaches the sea through several channels near Paradip. Other distributaries include the Paika, Birupa, Chitroptala, Genguti and Lun. The combined delta of the Mahanadi's distributaries and the Brahmani is one of the largest in India.

Before the Hirakud Dam was built, the Mahanadi was navigable from its mouth up to Arrang, about 250 km from its source. Barrages have ended that, and boats are now restricted to the delta and the Hirakud reservoir. Some navigation is still carried on in the lower course.

Mahanadi Floods and the Chilika Link

The Mahanadi was called the sorrow of Odisha because its delta flooded repeatedly. At its monsoon peak the river has carried a discharge of about 57,000 cubic metres per second, almost as much as the much larger Ganga, although for most of the year it is a narrow channel between wide sand banks. Hirakud, canals, barrages and check dams now keep the river largely in control, but heavy rain can still cause large-scale flooding, as in September 2008 when 16 people died. The basin remains subject to severe flooding in the delta because the channels have inadequate carrying capacity, and Hirakud only provides some relief by storing part of the flood water.

Chilika Lake, the large brackish lagoon of the Odisha coast, is hydrologically tied to the Mahanadi. Two of the three southern branches into which the Mahanadi trifurcates at Cuttack feed the lake, and together they supply about 61 per cent of its freshwater inflow, while 52 river channels from the west also feed it. The river is therefore both the flood problem of the delta and the freshwater source of the lagoon.

Hirakud Dam: Construction, Structure and Purposes

Hirakud Dam stands across the Mahanadi about 10 km from Sambalpur in Odisha and is the longest major earthen dam in the world. It is a composite structure of earth, concrete and masonry. The foundation stone was laid on 15 March 1946, Jawaharlal Nehru laid the first concrete on 12 April 1948, the dam was completed in 1953, and Nehru formally inaugurated it on 13 January 1957. Power generation and irrigation began in 1956 and reached full potential in 1966. It is regarded as one of the first major multipurpose river-valley projects started after independence.

The main dam is 4.8 km long and spans two hills, Laxmidungri on the left and Chandili Dunguri on the right. Earthen dykes of about 21 km close the low saddles beyond the hills, so the dam and dykes together measure 25.8 km. At full capacity the reservoir covers 743 sq km, with a shoreline of over 639 km. Two power houses, one at Burla at the foot of the dam and one at Chiplima about 19 km to the south-east, give an installed capacity of 347.5 MW.

The dam was built for three linked purposes, flood control in the Mahanadi delta, irrigation and hydroelectricity. The upper basin on the Chhattisgarh plain suffers periodic drought while the lower delta suffers floods, and one reservoir in the middle of the river addresses both. The project provides flood protection to about 9,500 sq km of delta area in Cuttack and Puri districts, and its water, together with the water released by the power plants, irrigates land in Sambalpur, Bargarh, Bolangir and Subarnpur and in the delta. Water is also allocated to industry, mainly mineral processing and coal-fired power plants in Jharsuguda and Sambalpur districts.

Hirakud Reservoir: Displacement, Siltation and Ramsar Status

The dam covered villages and about 200 temples when it filled. Nearly 1,50,000 people were affected, and nearly 22,000 families were displaced, and the compensation actually paid was only a fraction of the amount originally estimated. The resettlement history is part of the reason Hirakud is cited in questions on the social cost of large dams.

Siltation has reduced the capacity of the reservoir by about 24 per cent since construction, so the flood-moderation margin is smaller than at design. The Hirakud Reservoir was declared a Ramsar site, a wetland of international importance, on 12 October 2021.

Godavari River System

Godavari Source, Length and Basin

The Godavari rises at Trimbakeshwar in the Nashik district of Maharashtra at an elevation of about 1,067 m, about 80 km from the Arabian Sea, and flows 1,465 km to the Bay of Bengal. It is the largest peninsular river system. The basin covers 3,12,812 sq km, nearly 9.5 per cent of the geographical area of India, between 73 degrees 24 minutes and 83 degrees 4 minutes east longitude and 16 degrees 19 minutes and 22 degrees 34 minutes north latitude.

About 49 per cent of the basin lies in Maharashtra and 20 per cent in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh together; most of the remainder lies in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, with smaller parts in Odisha and Karnataka. The Godavari basin is bounded by the Satmala hills, the Ajanta range and the Mahadeo hills on the north, the Eastern Ghats on the south and east, and the Western Ghats on the west.

Only the first stretch of the river sees heavy rain. The Godavari receives water from about 129 km of the high-rainfall Western Ghats zone, where annual rainfall ranges from 1,000 to 3,000 mm, and rainfall then falls quickly to under 600 mm in a rain-shadow belt east of the Ghats, after which it rises again to about 900 mm near the east coast. The basin gets 84 per cent of its annual rainfall in the south-west monsoon, and the Indravati and Pranhita sub-basins get 86 and 88 per cent.

Course of the Godavari Through Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh

In Nashik district the Godavari first flows north-east into the Gangapur reservoir, then passes over a rocky bed that forms two waterfalls, Gangapur and Someshwar (the latter also called the Dudhsagar waterfall). Nashik, on its bank, is one of the four Kumbh Mela sites. About 25 km below Nashik the Darna joins it, and at Nandur-Madhmeshwar the Kadva adds water. The river then follows a south-easterly course typical of Deccan rivers.

Between Ahmednagar and Aurangabad districts it receives the Pravara at Pravarasangam. At Paithan it is impounded by the Jayakwadi Dam, which forms the Nath Sagar reservoir. Further down, near Nanded, the Vishnupuri barrage supports a lift irrigation scheme, and the Purna joins from the left. The river leaves Maharashtra and enters Telangana at Kandakurthy, where the Manjira and the Haridra join it in a triveni sangamam, a meeting of three rivers, and soon meets the backwater of the Sriram Sagar reservoir.

Below Sriram Sagar the river takes the Pranhita at Kaleshwaram and then the Indravati, passes Bhadrachalam, and enters Andhra Pradesh through the hilly terrain of the Eastern Ghats known as the Papi hills. There the bed narrows to a gorge and widens again at Polavaram; the lower reach south of Polavaram is subject to heavy floods. The Sabari, the last major tributary, joins on the left bank before the Papi hills. At Rajamahendravaram the river splits into branches to form the delta.

Dakshin Ganga: Why the Godavari Carries the Name

The Godavari is also called the Dakshin Ganga, the Ganga of the south. The name rests on size and sanctity rather than on any hydrological likeness. In length, catchment and discharge it is the largest river of peninsular India. Ancient texts often refer to it as Ganga, and a legend says that the sage Gautama, living in the Brahmagiri hills at Trimbakeshwar, asked Shiva to let the Ganga flow over a cow he had killed by mistake, and the Godavari rose at Nashik as a result.

The Godavari is sacred at several places along its course. Trimbakeshwar is one of the twelve Jyotirlinga shrines, Nashik hosts the Simhastha Kumbh Mela, and the Pushkaram fair is held on its banks every twelve years. Gangakhed in Parbhani district takes its name from the belief that the river there is Ganga, and Kaleshwaram marks the confluence of the Godavari and the Pranhita.

Godavari Tributaries on the Left and Right Bank

The seven principal tributaries are divided by bank. The left-bank tributaries are the Purna, the Pranhita, the Indravati and the Sabari, and together they drain nearly 59.7 per cent of the basin. The right-bank tributaries are the Pravara, the Manjira and the Manair, and together they cover about 16.1 per cent. The main stem in its upper, middle and lower reaches accounts for the remaining 24.2 per cent.

The Pranhita system is the largest tributary by catchment, at about 34.87 per cent of the Godavari basin. The Indravati is the second largest by drainage area. The Manjira is the longest tributary at 724 km, and it carries the Nizam Sagar reservoir. The Purna is the main river of the water-scarce Marathwada region.

Pranhita, Wardha, Wainganga and Penganga

The Pranhita is a short river made by the meeting of two large ones. The Wardha, which rises in the Satpura range near Khairwani village in Multai tehsil of Betul district in Madhya Pradesh at 777 m, joins the Wainganga, which rises in the Mahadeo hills in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh. Their united stream, the Pranhita, runs only 113 km along the border of Gadchiroli district in Maharashtra and the Telangana districts opposite, flows southward unlike most Deccan rivers, and falls into the Godavari at Kaleshwaram. Because it carries the combined water of the Wardha, the Wainganga and the Penganga, it drains Vidarbha and the southern slopes of the Satpura range.

The Penganga is not a direct feeder of the Pranhita. It rises in the Ajanta range in Buldhana district of Maharashtra and joins the Wardha as a right-bank tributary near Wadha in Chandrapur district; the Wardha then meets the Wainganga. The Wainganga flows about 580 km south through Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and passes Balaghat, Bhandara and Gadchiroli. The Wardha is also known as the Varada.

The Indravati is the other giant of the lower Godavari. It rises at 914 m in the Kalahandi district of Odisha, flows west to Jagdalpur in Chhattisgarh and then south, forms the boundary between Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra for part of its course, and joins the Godavari at the junction of Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra and Telangana. It is called the lifeline of Kalahandi, Nabarangapur and Bastar. A barrage on the Indravati diverts water to the Sabari for hydropower, and its floodwater also overflows naturally into the Sabari basin through the Jouranala. Because both Indravati and Pranhita have vast sub-basins, they are considered rivers in their own right.

Godavari Delta, Distributaries and Coringa Mangroves

At Rajamahendravaram the river splits at the Dowleswaram barrage into two large branches, the Gautami (Gautami Godavari) and the Vasishta, and the Vasishta divides again into Vasishta and Vainateya. Together these branches form a delta about 170 km long along the coast, called the Konaseema region, and the Godavari delta together with the Krishna delta is known as the Rice Granary of South India. The traditional count is seven mouths, named for seven sages and called Sapta Godavari, and the undivided river above the split is called the Akhanda Godavari. The Gautami passes the Yanam enclave of Puducherry, which lies in the delta.

Sir Arthur Cotton built the barrage across the river at Rajamahendravaram in 1852, and the irrigation canals of this barrage are part of National Waterway 4. The Coringa mangroves in the delta are the third largest mangrove formation in the country, part of them is the Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary, and the forests protect nearby villages from cyclones and storm surges. The Krishna-Godavari basin is also one of the main nesting areas of the olive ridley turtle.

The delta is under pressure. The suspended sediment load reaching the delta fell from 150.2 million tonnes in 1970 to 1979 to 57.2 million tonnes in 2000 to 2006, a fall of about 62 per cent in four decades, and the build-up of the delta no longer exceeds the rise in relative sea level. Dam construction upstream is a likely cause.

Dams and Projects on the Godavari

Jayakwadi and Sriram Sagar Reservoirs on the Godavari

The Jayakwadi Dam, near Paithan in Maharashtra, is an earthen dam about 41.30 m high and about 10 km long, with a total storage of 2,909 million cubic metres, and it is also called the Nath Sagar. It is a multipurpose project meant to irrigate the drought-prone Marathwada region and to supply drinking and industrial water to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar (formerly Aurangabad) and Jalna. Lal Bahadur Shastri laid the foundation on 18 October 1965 and Indira Gandhi inaugurated the dam on 24 February 1976. The reservoir backwaters form the Jayakwadi bird sanctuary.

The Sriram Sagar Project, also called Pochampadu, lies in Nizamabad district of Telangana. Nehru laid its foundation on 26 July 1963, and it serves Karimnagar, Warangal, Adilabad, Nizamabad and Khammam districts with irrigation, supplies drinking water to Warangal and has a hydroelectric plant of 36 MW. Its main canal is the Kakatiya Canal. In most years inflows are poor and the project runs short of water, so upstream use in Maharashtra, such as the Babli barrage, became contentious.

Both dams figure in the Godavari award. The water available above the Paithan dam site is allotted to Maharashtra, and the Pochampadu reservoir was accorded priority over other reservoirs for water generated in the area below the three dams of Paithan, Siddheshwar and Nizamsagar.

Polavaram National Project: Design, Status and Cost

The Polavaram Irrigation Project on the Godavari in Eluru district of Andhra Pradesh lies about 40 km upstream of the Sir Arthur Cotton Barrage; its foundation stone was laid in 1980. It was declared a National Project under Section 90 of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, which came into force on 1 March 2014. The Government of Andhra Pradesh executes the irrigation component on behalf of the Government of India, and the Centre funds the remaining cost of that component from 1 April 2014. The Polavaram Project Authority, a statutory body, oversees it.

The design combines an earth-cum-rock fill dam of about 2,467.50 m with a spillway of about 1,121.20 m, and it aims to irrigate 2.91 lakh hectares in East Godavari, Visakhapatnam, West Godavari and Krishna districts. The spillway sits on the right bank because the river bed holds deep sand layers, so the river was diverted about 6.6 km. A diaphragm wall of 1.372 km runs under the dam. The reservoir backwater reaches about 150 km upstream and into the Sabari valley, and extends into Chhattisgarh and Odisha, which is why the project has its own history of inter-state objections.

The Union Cabinet approved a revised cost of ₹30,436.95 crore for storage up to EL +41.15 m on 28 August 2024, with the balance central grant limited to ₹12,157.53 crore. By December 2025 the cumulative central assistance for the project stood at ₹20,658 crore.

Pattiseema Lift and the Godavari-Krishna Water Transfer

The Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Project, in Pattiseema village on the Godavari, lifts Godavari water into the Polavaram Right Main Canal so that it reaches the Krishna upstream of the Prakasam Barrage. The pump house has 24 pumping units and a combined capacity of 240 cumecs. A trial run in 2015 lifted 8.8 tmc of Godavari water to the Krishna delta, and the project was inaugurated in March 2016. The Krishna is short of water in many years, so the Godavari surplus is sent to the Krishna delta in the monsoon months.

The Godavari (Polavaram) to Krishna (Vijayawada) link is part of the Peninsular Component of the National Perspective Plan of 1980. Andhra Pradesh took it up as part of the Indirasagar Polavaram Project, and water connectivity in the link canal has now been established, so it is the working example of a river link on the ground.

Inter-State Water Disputes on the Godavari and the Mahanadi

Article 262 and the Machinery for Inter-State River Disputes

Article 262 of the Constitution provides for the adjudication of inter-state water disputes and makes two provisions. Parliament may by law provide for the adjudication of any dispute or complaint about the use, distribution and control of waters of any inter-state river and river valley, and Parliament may also provide that neither the Supreme Court nor any other court shall exercise jurisdiction over such a dispute. Parliament used this power to enact two laws in 1956, the River Boards Act and the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act.

The River Boards Act provides for river boards, set up by the Centre at the request of the states concerned, to advise them on regulation and development. The Inter-State River Water Disputes Act empowers the Centre to set up an ad hoc tribunal for a dispute between two or more states, and the tribunal's decision is final and binding on the parties. The decisions of the Krishna-I, Godavari, Narmada, Kaveri and Mahadayi tribunals are published in the Official Gazette and are effective and binding, while the Ravi-Beas, Krishna-II and Vamsadhara decisions are not notified and not yet effective, and the Mahanadi tribunal has not yet submitted its report.

Settlement by negotiation among the party states is the preferred route, because it fosters a spirit of involvement, and a long list of inter-state agreements exists for the Godavari alone. The tribunal route and the negotiation route run side by side, as the Mahanadi case now shows.

Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal, 1969 to 1980

The Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal was constituted in April 1969 for Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, and it gave its award in July 1980. It was a common tribunal with the Krishna dispute at the start; the Krishna award came first, in May 1976, and the Godavari work then followed. Its chairman was R. S. Bachawat.

The Godavari award is notable because the states had already settled much by agreement. A 1951 conference among the then states of Bombay, Madras, Hyderabad, Madhya Pradesh and Mysore had dealt with Krishna and Godavari water, the five basin states signed a new agreement on 19 December 1975, and the tribunal observed that existing agreements on projects in the basin should be carried out. Water used under completed projects up to 6 October 1975 is protected. The tribunal also ruled on the Polavaram full reservoir level, spillway capacity and flood-gate operation, on which Odisha and Chhattisgarh could not agree with Andhra Pradesh.

Later disputes remained project-specific. The Babli barrage in Maharashtra reached the Supreme Court, which stipulated that its gates stay lifted from 1 July to 28 October, and the Polavaram backwater affects Odisha and Chhattisgarh. The inter-state sharing disputes on the Godavari, Krishna-I and Narmada are settled by their tribunals' decisions, though project-specific issues continue to be handled case by case.

Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal, 2018 Onward

Odisha sued in the Supreme Court to have the Mahanadi dispute referred to a tribunal. After the Court's order of 23 January 2018 in that suit, the Centre constituted the Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal on 12 March 2018 under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956. Justice A. M. Khanwilkar of the Supreme Court was its chairman, with Justice Ravi Ranjan of the Patna High Court and Justice Indermeet Kaur Kochhar of the Delhi High Court as members.

The Mahanadi tribunal is the only inter-state tribunal still to submit its report and decision, and it remains in the process of adjudication. On 30 July 2026 the Union Jal Shakti Minister met the Chief Ministers of Chhattisgarh and Odisha to facilitate an amicable settlement, and the meeting noted the progress of a Joint Technical Committee that had reached consensus on several technical issues and the constitution of an expanded Technical Committee under the Chairman of the Central Water Commission (CWC), whose first meeting was held on 29 July 2026. The Centre has extended the tenure of the tribunal so that all parties can present their views.

River Interlinking in the Peninsular Component

Mahanadi-Godavari and Godavari-Kaveri Proposals

The Peninsular Rivers Development component of the National Perspective Plan begins with the interlinking of the Mahanadi, Godavari, Krishna, Pennar and Kaveri and the building of storages in these basins. Surplus water of the Mahanadi and Godavari is meant to go to the needy south through the Krishna, Pennar and Kaveri. Of the 30 links identified, pre-feasibility reports exist for all 30, feasibility reports for 26 and detailed project reports for 13.

The Mahanadi (Manibhadra) to Godavari (Dowleswaram) link and its alternate, the Mahanadi (Barmul) to Rushikulya to Godavari link, have feasibility reports completed, and the system studies by NIH Roorkee were completed in May 2023. The detailed project report could not be taken up because the Government of Odisha was not agreeable to the link, owing to the large submergence involved in the Manibhadra dam. The Mahanadi to Godavari link is the mother link of a nine-link system, because the links further south depend on its water. A preliminary revised proposal with reduced submergence was submitted to Odisha.

The Godavari to Kaveri link has become the leading peninsular priority. Because of pending consensus on the Manibhadra and Inchampalli dams, a combined project of the Godavari (Inchampalli) to Krishna (Nagarjunasagar) to Pennar (Somasila) to Kaveri (Grand Anicut) links was prepared, and the report now ends the canal at Manimuktha river. An interim arrangement proposes a transfer of about 4,189 million cubic metres from the Godavari, with the Bedti-Varda link between two west-flowing Karnataka rivers proposed alongside it, and the technical report, draft DPR and draft memorandum of agreement have been circulated to the states. The Ken-Betwa link is the only priority link in the implementation stage.

Advantages and Environmental Impact of River Linking

Linking moves water from basins with surplus to basins with deficit. The Godavari has such a surplus, because the Pranhita, Indravati and Sabari, which join in the lower reaches, carry about three times more water than the main river. The gains are of three kinds.

• Irrigation and drought relief: The 2015 trial lifted 8.8 tmc to protect crops in the Krishna delta during a dry spell, and the Polavaram to Vijayawada link is part of a project meant to irrigate 2.91 lakh hectares.
• Hydropower: The 600 MW Upper Indravati station diverts Godavari-basin water to the Mahanadi basin.
• Navigation: National Waterway 4 is being developed on the Godavari and Krishna systems, linking the canal ports of Kakinada and Puducherry with river stretches up to Bhadrachalam on the Godavari and Ibrahimpatnam on the Krishna, for 500-tonne cargo ships, with a later plan to extend the Godavari waterway up to Nashik. At present the Godavari is navigable only in the deltaic stretch.

The costs are equally real.

• Displacement: Large dams in a link flood land and displace people, as the Manibhadra submergence shows and as Hirakud's 22,000 displaced families showed earlier.
• Sediment: A reservoir and canal chain alters river flows and the sediment that reaches the delta, and the Godavari delta already receives about a third of the sediment it received in the 1970s.
• Storage: Peninsular rivers are monsoon-fed and non-perennial, so a link can move water only when and where there is storage to hold it.
• Terrain: The unevenness of the terrain means water must be lifted from plain to plateau, and the surplus in the northern rivers must be large enough to transfer on a regular basis.
• Consent between states: Its absence has held up the Mahanadi to Godavari link.

Sources

• NCERT: India Physical Environment (Class XI), Drainage System
• India-WRIS: Mahanadi basin
• India-WRIS: Godavari basin
• PIB: Year End Review 2024, Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation
• PIB: Interlinking of rivers, progress, clearances and funding
• PIB: Interlinking of rivers and major irrigation projects
• PIB: Features, details and status of inter-linking of rivers
• PIB: Gigantic project for linking of rivers
• PIB: Interstate river water disputes
• PIB: Centre constitutes Mahanadi Water Disputes Tribunal
• PIB: Union Minister of Jal Shakti meets the Chief Ministers of Chhattisgarh and Odisha on the Mahanadi dispute
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• Wikipedia: Mahanadi
• Wikipedia: Hirakud Dam
• Wikipedia: Chilika Lake
• Wikipedia: Godavari River
• Wikipedia: Pranhita River
• Wikipedia: Wardha River
• Wikipedia: Wainganga River
• Wikipedia: Penganga River
• Wikipedia: Indravati River
• Wikipedia: Manjira River
• Wikipedia: Vamsadhara River
• Wikipedia: Pennar
• Wikipedia: Jayakwadi Dam
• Wikipedia: Sriram Sagar Project
• Wikipedia: Godavari Water Disputes Tribunal
• Wikipedia: Polavaram Project
• Wikipedia: Pattiseema Lift Irrigation Project
• UPSC: Civil Services Examination question papers