West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday complained to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the unplanned release of water by the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) has caused a “man made '' flood situation in the state.
According to sources in the state administration, the development took place during Mamata’s visit to the flood-hit Udaynaranur area of Howrah district when the Prime Minister called her to assess the situation in Bengal.
They further revealed that the Prime Minister telephoned Mamata asking whether there was heavy rainfall in Bengal. Six districts of Bengal are affected by the flood-like situation.
“The Chief Minister told the Prime Minister that the DVC released water in an unplanned manner which aggravated the situation in the state,” a senior state government official said.
The Chief Minister who was scheduled to conduct an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas of Howrah and Hooghly district had to change her plans due to bad weather and instead went to Amta in Howrah by road.
Standing in knee-deep water at Amta, the Chief Minister assured the locals of all help from the state government. She also said that she told the Prime Minister that the DVC was responsible for the situation in Bengal.
Mamata in a letter to the Prime Minister termed the release of water by the DVC from its dams at Panchet, Maithon and Tenughat as “unprecedented.” DVC sources said that the organization has released 5.43 lakh cusecs of water from July 31 till Tuesday evening.
“Apart from the loss of 16 precious lives, there has been unprecedented displacement, suffering and loss of livelihood of lakhs and lakhs of farmers and people at large...,” stated Mamata.
She further alleged that even as she urged the Prime Minister and the DVC in 2015 to conduct “essential de-siltation and dredging” of its reservoirs which would have increased the capacity of its dams by 1,2 lakh acre-feet nothing has been done so far.
“PM @narendramodi spoke to WB CM @MamataOfficial on the flood situation caused by water discharge from dams in parts of the state. PM assured all possible support from the Centre to help mitigate the situation.PM Modi prays for the safety and wellbeing of those in affected areas,” PMO tweeted.