West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said the flood-like situation in parts of south districts of the state was “man-made” caused by the release of excess water by dams in Jharkhand.
Parts of Birbhum, Bankura, Howrah, Hooghly, North and South 24 Parganas, Purba and Paschim Medinipur, and Paschim Bardhaman districts are inundated, according to the state government.
The chief minister, who visited Hooghly district to review the flood situation, said that she called her Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren thrice, urging him not to discharge more water downstream.
“I spoke with Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. I also spoke with DVC (Damodar Valley Corporation) and requested them not to discharge water (to Bengal). If they want to release water, they should give intimation. They can also discharge water slowly. But instead, they discharged 3.5 cusecs of water without informing us, which is unprecedented. To save their state (Jharkhand), they planned to flood Bengal,” Banerjee said.
The CM also said that despite asking the Central government repeatedly for dredging canals linked to the dams, nothing has been done so far. “I also wrote a letter to the Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) that they should dredge canals linked with these dams, so that the river’s water holding capacity gets increased. But they did nothing,” the CM said.
Several areas of Arambagh, Goghat and Khanakul in Hooghly district, Udainarayanpur in Howrah, and Ghatal in Paschim Medinipur have seen flooding since Tuesday.
On Thursday, the chief minister is likely to visit the affected areas in Paschim Medinipur and stay overnight. She is also likely to got to Ghatal Friday morning.
In Hooghly, two river embankments in Kishorepur and two embankments in the port area of Khanakul broke, leading to flooding in the area.
In Malaypur in Arambagh and Kadipur in Purshurah, the Mundeshwari dam broke and several villages got inundated. Several villages of Tarkeswar were also inundated by the waters of Damodar.
Meanwhile, the Rupnarayan river is flowing above the danger level.
The situation is likely to worsen in the next two to three days with the DVC releasing 2.1 lakh cusec of water Tuesday night, according to officials.
“The DVC released 2.1 lakh cusec of water last night. However, since this morning, there has been a gradual reduction, as the rainfall has stopped in the upper catchment areas. At 8:30 am on Wednesday, the release rate was 1.7 lakh cusec, which further decreased to 1.4 lakh cusec by 10:45 am from the Panchet and Maithon dams,” PTI quoted DVC Maithon Chief Engineer Anjani K Dubey, as saying.
Water released above 1.5 lakh cusec is considered a “red alert,” while that between 1 lakh and 1.5 lakh cusec trigger an “orange alert”.
“The situation will remain grim, and the condition will worsen over the next two days before we see improvement. The water released over the last two days is now reaching Medinipur, Hooghly, and Howrah,” an irrigation official said.
Water released from Maithon Dam reaches Durgapur Barrage in 10 hours and takes about 59 hours to reach Amta in Howrah.
Two persons have died so far in the flood-like situation, Alapan Bandyopadhyay, the chief adviser to the chief minister, said on Tuesday.
Bandyopadhyay said disaster relief teams are working in affected areas and the government is closely monitoring the situation after having already relocated 25,000 people to safer places.
Local MLAs and officials have visited their respective areas to monitor the situation and listen to residents’ demands.
People in the Debra constituency of Paschim Medinipur protested before MLA Humayun Kabir after a river embankment was washed away.
“The people have rightfully protested, as the river embankment, which was under repair, could not be completed. We are moving people to relief centres, monitoring the situation, and will provide all necessary support,” Kabir told reporters.
With PTI Inputs
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