Mamata Banerjee, the chief minister of West Bengal, claimed on Wednesday that the state’s flood-like conditions in several of its southern districts were “man-made,” stemming from Jharkhand’s dams releasing extra water
“I spoke with Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. I also spoke with DVC (Damodar Valley Corporation) and requested them not to discharge water (to Bengal). If they want to release water, they should give intimation. They can also discharge water slowly. But instead, they discharged 3.5 cusecs of water without informing us, which is unprecedented. To save their state (Jharkhand), they planned to flood Bengal,” said Mamata Banerjee.
The state government reports that parts of the districts of Howrah, Hooghly, Purba and Paschim Medinipur, Birbhum, Bankura, North and South 24 Parganas, and Paschim Bardhaman are under water.
As per PTI, DVC Maithon Chief Engineer Anjani K Dubey says, “The DVC released 2.1 lakh cusec of water last night. However, since this morning, there has been a gradual reduction, as the rainfall has stopped in the upper catchment areas. At 8:30 am on Wednesday, the release rate was 1.7 lakh cusec, which further decreased to 1.4 lakh cusec by 10:45 am from the Panchet and Maithon dams.”
A “red alert” is issued for water discharged in excess of 1.5 lakh cusec, and a “orange alert” is issued for water released between 1 lakh and 1.5 lakh cusec.
After being released from Maithon Dam, water takes 59 hours to reach Amta in Howrah and 10 hours to reach Durgapur Barrage.
According to Alapan Bandyopadhyay, the chief minister’s chief adviser, two people have already perished in the flood-like conditions on Tuesday.
After moving 25,000 people to safer locations, disaster relief teams are reportedly operating in the impacted districts, and the government is actively monitoring the situation, according to Bandyopadhyay.
MLAs and other local officials have made visits to their respective districts to keep an eye on the situation and hear what the locals have to say.
“The situation will remain grim, and the condition will worsen over the next two days,” said an irrigation official.