The Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) on Wednesday said that it discharges water after taking consent of the state government and blaming it for the deluge is not justified. This came after it faced a severe criticism water released from its dams in an “unprecedented” manner led to the flooding of West Bengal.
After a high-level meeting in Nabanna on Wednesday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the afternoon. She has lodged a written complaint with the government on the DVC issue, referring to the allegation that the DVC was repeatedly releasing water without informing the state.
Mamata further reiterated that the desilting and dredging activities were not taken up and water-holding capacity of the DVC’s dams was not increased, even though the issues were raised way back in 2015.
As per the available data, the DVC, since July 31, has released 5.98 lakh cusec of water till Wednesday afternoon.
Nevertheless, DVC in a counter to Mamata’s accusations said that at times it is not able to hold the pressure of the dams. Although DVC has reported a reversal, it has not been possible to retain the excess water due to the reduced navigability of the rivers due to siltation. So DVC has to release water.
The DVC official said that the corporation tries to restrict water release to the maximum possible but further regulating will put the dams in danger. With more rain forecast, the situation may worsen, he added.
Nearly 18 people died, and three lakh were displaced after heavy rain in the last few days and subsequent discharge of water from DVC dams inundated large parts of six districts in West Bengal.
In the first line of the four-paged letter, Mamata wrote , “this flood is man-made.”
Recalling the geographical location of West Bengal, she wrote that 200,000 cusecs of water have been released from Panchet, Maithon and Tenughat reservoirs. As a result, districts like Howrah, Hooghly, East Burdwan, West Burdwan, Birbhum and West Midnapore were practically sinking. Excessive water leaks have already killed 18 people. At the same time, many farmland, roads and bridges have been damaged, Mamata added.
She noted that despite repeated calls for DVC reform in 2015, it is still elusive. In this situation, she has requested the Prime Minister to make a long-term plan. Besides, the Chief Minister has also given some suggestions to the Prime Minister to avoid similar flood situation in future.