The flood situation in West Bengal improved on Saturday on the back of no rain in the affected districts in the last 24 hours. The Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) also reduced the release of water from the Maithon and Panchet dams.

Earlier this week, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had blamed the DVC for inundating vast areas of West Midnapore, Hooghly, and Howrah districts, among others, by releasing more than four lakh cusecs of water. After touring the flooded areas, Banerjee had threatened to “cut off all communication with the DVC”.

“The DVC is a Central government agency. Four lakh cusec of water was released, and this never happened before. Many areas were saved because we created five lakh ponds and executed the Kapaleshwar Keleghai project. The Ghatal master plan has been pending for 10 years, the Centre did not give a single penny for it,” she said.

“We repeatedly told the Damodar Valley Corporation (in Jharkhand) not to release water… We will start a big movement against this,” Banerjee added.

However, the Centre claimed the DVC intimated the West Bengal government prior to releasing water from the Maithon and Panchet dams.

Meanwhile, the DVC stated that it released 10,000 cusec of water from the Maithon dam and 40,000 from the Panchet dam since Friday night.

Meanwhile, after 42 days of agitation, junior doctors joined work in various government hospitals in Bengal on Saturday. The junior doctors held a medical camp in flood-affected Keshpur on Saturday morning. They also distributed relief materials, medicine, and ORS at the camp.

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