Mahanadi River Basin:
The state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) recently discovered two significant natural gas reserves in the Mahanadi basin block in the Bay of Bengal.
- Mahanadi River Basin is the 8th largest river basin in the country, with a total catchment area of 139681.51 sq. km, which is nearly 4.28% of the total geographical area of the country.
- The catchment area of the basin extends over major parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha and comparatively smaller portions of Jharkhand, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh.
- The basin has a maximum length and width of 587 km and 400 km, respectively.
- It is bounded by the Central India hills on the north, by the Eastern Ghats on the south and east, and by the Maikala range on the west.
- Physiographically, the basin can be divided into four regions, namely, the northern plateau, the Eastern Ghats, the coastal plain, and the erosional plains of central table land.
