DVC further releases 70,000 cusec water as rains subside
The Statesman | 5 October 2025Of this, 37,500 cusec was released from Panchet Dam and 32,500 from Maithon Dam.
From the Durgapur Barrage, around 73,675 cusec of water was released at approximately 7 p.m. today. An additional 1,000 cusecs have been discharged through the irrigation canals.
Sources said that the Damodar Valley Reservoir Regulatory Committee has instructed DVC to release 70,000 cusecs of water from its Panchet and Maithon dams.
As rainfall has almost ceased, and with similar weather expected in the coming days, the volume of water released from the DVC dams at Maithon and Panchet — located along the West Bengal–Jharkhand border — is likely to be reduced further.
The Durgapur Barrage has a designed storage capacity of 211.5 acre-feet, but due to siltation, it has reportedly lost about 40 per cent of its capacity.
The DVC has already issued an orange alert for its dam water releases. The water discharged from the Jharkhand-based dams flows downstream to Durgapur, Sadarghat and Surekalna in East Burdwan, and ultimately reaches Champadanga in Hooghly district.
The water level in both Maithon and Panchet dams has risen over the past few days due to continuous rainfall in the upper catchment area of the Damodar river.
