Most of the mesh-based multicast routing protocols in mobile ad hoc networks suffer in flooding of control messages for route maintenance and redundant data packet delivery because of multiple paths in the mesh. These lead to data and control overhead in the routing process which affects the utilization of the bandwidth and efficiency of the routing protocol. In this paper, we suggested an overhead reduction (OHR) algorithm to reduce the redundant paths without affect the reliabrirty through minimizing the number of redirecting nodes in the mesh. It also predicts the active route break time to reduce the unnecessary control packets by receiving signal power strength. The OHR algorithm is implemented in On Demand Multicast Routing Protocol (ODMRP) and compared with other protocols such as ODMRP with minimal forwarding nodes, ODMRP-LM, and ODMRP-GM. The comparison shows that the proposed protocol outpaces other protocols taken for simulation in terms of less normalized control overhead and improves the packet delivery ratio. It also has a high end to end delay than ODMRP with minimal forwarding nodes, ODMRP-LM and ODMRP-GM.