The chief Minister of West Bengal, Mamata Banerjee, on Monday delivered a stern letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, threatening to sever ties with the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) unless water release was stopped – which she complained was done “unplanned and unilateral.”. As per her letter, around 500,000 cusecs of water were released from Maithon and Panchet dams, affecting seven districts and affecting nearly five million people across an area of 1,000 square kilometres.
Mamata Banerjee described the floods as the worst that the state has witnessed since 2009 and termed them a “man-made disaster” due to mismanagement by DVC. She has requested immediate central funds to help mitigate the damage and called for urgent dredging and desilting of DVC reservoirs to enhance their floodwater retention capacity.
The West Bengal chief minister further criticised DVC for discharging nearly 5 lakh cusecs of water from Maithon and Panchet dams without coordination with the state government. She termed it the worst flood situation in the Lower Damodar region since 2009 and coined the term “man-made flood” to describe the cause as negligence and lack of maintenance of the DVC infrastructure.
The DVC needs to be dredged and desilted properly so that the storage capacity is enhanced during flood times. Thus the frequency of floods may be reduced in future. RIL has requested the Union Minister for Coal during the last three years to arrange adequate funds for flood management in West Bengal. In addition, the honourable minister has been requested to consider the desilting of all the DVC reservoirs for enhancing their capacities to hold floodwater. She said no funds have been allocated for the state during the last three years for flood management and measures to control erosion.
Responding to this, the BJP has accused Banerjee of politicising the issue and shifting the blame to the central government in response. “It’s very unfortunate that the state government was not taking enough preventive measures to avert the situation. This is not the time for political gimmicks,” said a party leader.
This development has increased political frictions between the West Bengal state government and the central authorities as Banerjee seeks immediate help from the central government to approach the crisis and reduce the burden on the ravaged regions.Huge political aftershocks of this issue, with BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari demanding that Mamata reverse her move to seal interstate borders with Jharkhand, where the dams are located, or face complaints from him to Union ministers.
