Baitarani River

The Baitarani River is one of six major rivers of Orissa, India. Venerated in popular epics and legends, the Baitarani River is a source of water for agricultural irrigation. Most of the potentially arable land in the area is not under cultivation. The coastal plain of Orissa has the name of "Hexadeltaic region" or the "Gift of Six Rivers". These deltas divide the coastal plain into three regions from north to south. The Baitarani, the Mahanadi and the Brahmani rivers form the Middle Coastal Plain, with evidence of past 'back bays' and present lakes.

The Baitarani originates from the Guptaganga hills in Gonasika of Keonjhar district in Orissa state of India at an elevation of 900 m above sea level. The uppermost part of the river, about 80 km in length, flows in a northerly direction; then it changes its path suddenly by 900 and flows eastward. The beginning portion of Baitarani acts as the boundary between Orissa and Jharkhand.

The river enters a plain at Anandpur and creates a deltaic zone at Akhuapada. The river travels a distance of 360 km to drain into the Bay of Bengal after joining of the Brahmani at Dhamra mouth near Chandabali. The river has 65 tributaries, of which 35 join from the left side and 30 join from the right side. The river basin in Orissa is spread in 42 blocks of eight districts.

A major portion of the river basin lies within the state of Orissa, while a small patch of the upper reach lies in Jharkhand state. The upper Baitarani basin on the western slopes of the Eastern Ghats, comprising the Panposh-Keonjhar-Pallahara plateau, is one of the two plateaus forming ‘The Central Plateaus’ - one of Orissa’s five major morphological regions.

Dams and barrages on the Baitarani and its major tributary, the Salandi, irrigate 61,920 ha. The proposed Bhimkund and upper Baitarani multi-purpose projects envisage many more dams across this river and its tributaries to provide irrigation to more than 1,000 km².

Flooding is a regular phenomenon in the Baitarani basin. Its inhabitants live in constant fear of loss to life and property. Even a two-day rain in July in 2005 caused the river to overflow its banks, affecting 140,000 people in 220 villages of Jajpur and Bhadrak districts. In at least two places the embankments were breached and marooning occurred, inflicting massive losses of life and property. Apart from the long pending construction of a dam at Bhimkund and proposed other measures like river bed excavation and construction of embankments etc. in the deltaic region, there remain the unaddressed land use issues in the upstream, to which, till date, no serious thoughts or efforts have been directed.

Baitarani basin, with its rich mineral and agricultural resources and with availability of cheap labour, offered an ideal ground for establishment and operation of various industries. However, the principal development activities in the industrial, agricultural and mining sectors have contributed significantly towards deterioration in the water quality. [ [http://www.baitarani.org "Baitarani River Basin Project"] ]

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