Definition
A major east-flowing peninsular river, about 850 km long, that rises near Sihawa in Dhamtari district of Chhattisgarh, flows through the Chhattisgarh plain and Odisha, is dammed at Hirakud and builds a large delta near Cuttack before entering the Bay of Bengal.
Background and evolution
Before the Hirakud dam, floods from the Mahanadi regularly devastated the delta, and the colonial and early national governments saw river control as essential to Odisha's development. The dam was planned in the 1940s, with engineers and leaders such as A. N. Khosla involved, and it displaced a large number of families from villages in the reservoir area, many of whom waited decades for full compensation. Today Hirakud is both a symbol of development and a reminder of the human costs of large projects.
The Mahanadi, meaning "great river", drains a basin that lies between the Chota Nagpur plateau to the north and the Eastern Ghats and Deccan uplands to the south. From its source in the hills of Dhamtari it flows north and then east across the fertile Chhattisgarh plain, sometimes called the rice bowl of central India, receiving tributaries such as the Seonath, Hasdeo and Mand. It enters Odisha near Sambalpur, where the Hirakud dam, completed in 1957 as one of independent India's first major multipurpose projects, holds back a vast reservoir.
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