The bitterness between Orissa and Andhra Pradesh over sharing the water of river Mahendratanaya has reached flashpoint with the Andhra Pradesh government going ahead with its irrigation project. Andhra Pradesh chief minister, YS Rajasekhar Reddy, laid the foundation stone for the Rs 127-crore irrigation project across the Mahendratanaya in Srikakulam district recently. In retaliation, the Orissa government has decided to construct two diversion weirs for instant utilisation of water as an interim measure. The state government has also started consultations to move the Supreme Court to stop the neighbouring state from going ahead with the project. Mahendratanaya, a tributary of Bansadhara river, originates near Tuparasingi village in Gajapati district, and plays hide and seek with the two border states. However, four-fifths of the river flows through Gajapati and Rayagada district. The AP project involves the construction of an offtake sluice on the left bank of the river at Chapara village of Meliaputti mandal in Srikakulam district. The water will be diverted through the offtake sluice into a channel which will run for 17 km and flow into the proposed reservoir across a valley between high mounds at Regulapadu village in the same district. The project, estimated at a cost of Rs 127 crore, would have an area of 24,600 acre of Palasa and Nandigam Mandal and facilitate drinking water supply to Palasa, Kasibugga municipality of AP. The construction work, which has been entrusted to a Hyderabad-based company, will be completed within eight months. If the Andhra government goes ahead with the project, it is feared that large tracts of agriculture land in Gosani and Rayagada blocks of Gajapati district in Orissa would be submerged and there would be water crisis in Paralakhemundi municipality. Outraged by the AP government's move, Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik has shot off a letter to him. Pointing out that the project violates the inter-state river water sharing pact signed in 1962, Patnaik requested the AP chief minister not to go ahead with the project till a joint inspection by technical committees from both the states is completed. What, however, sparked off protests in Orissa was Mr Reddy laying the foundation stone for the project ignoring Orissa's complaint.