It is bad news for outgoing President Pranab Mukherjee. An inundated ancestral village Miriti waits to greet him post-retirement. An entire block of 17 villages, including Miriti, Kirnhar, luvpur and other areas of Birbhum village, have literally gone under water following incessant rain for the past several days.
Insignificant usually but ferocious in monsoon “Rivers like Kuye and Darakeshwar have wrecked havoc in the area inundating at least 17villages in the region,” said a district official.
What is true to Birbhum holds water for major part of the State with large swathes of land in Burdwan, Hooghly, two Midnapores, Bankura and Purulia and not least Capital Kolkata literally going under water under the impact of a high tide and incessant rain since last Friday.
What is worse the weather man has predicted heavy or very heavy showers for at least another 48 hours raising the risk of flood in other areas too leading the Mamata Banerjee Government to open a control room at State secretariat Nabanna.
large parts of Kolkata also went under water with high tide joining hands with cyclonic rains. “The pumps are operating round the clock to drain out water. We hope things will become normal as rains recede,” said Kolkata Mayor Sovan Chatterjee.
State Irrigation Minister Rajib Banerjee said the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) released 18,000 cusecs of water from its dams following the rains in Jharkhand.
“We are in discussions with them. We have requested them to not release more water. Our preparations are in line with the forecast for the next two days,” he said.
“In some areas, the cumulative rainfall for the past four days (since Thursday) is 600 mm or more. No embankments were breached. We have made arrangements to increase the height of some of the embankments,” he maintained.
The Chief Minister meanwhile accused the DVC for releasing water from Jharkhand barrages causing low-lying areas to get flooded in downstream Bengal. Sources said about 1 lakh cusecs of water have been released from barrages at Panchet, Durgapur, Galudih and elsewhere.
“We have requested Jharkhand not release water from its barrages. But they have done so without informing us causing so much damage,” Banerjee said before leaving for Delhi where she will take part in the swearing-in ceremony of President elect Ramnath Kovind.
Reacting sharply to Banerjee’s accusations State BJP president Dilip Ghosh said it was not unusual for the Chief Minister to accuse others for her own faults. “If there is flood in Bengal, she accuses Jharkhand, if there is fire in this State she accuses Bihar, for violence in Darjeeling she blames Nepal and China, as though her own Government and Trinamool Congress are flawless.”