With already three lakh people having been displaced due to floods and weather office forecasting more rains in the coming days Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday accused the central agencies for creating man-made flood in her State and wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking respite from the present situation.
The Chief Minister who also had a telephonic talk with the Prime Minister earlier on the day and told him how faulty maintenance and erroneous decisions taken by the centrally controlled Damodar Valley Corporation had left flooded large parts of southern Bengal.
Besides Banerjee lodging a verbal complaint with the Prime Minister she also wrote a letter to him about what she called “grave man-made flood situation” in South Bengal districts adding how the DVC authorities had released “unprecedented” volume of water from its dams at Panchet, Maithon and Tenughat.
While sources said that the DVC had released 5.98 lakh cusec of water in last four-five days Banerjee on Wednesday told newsmen that “the DVC had announced leaving of 54,000 cusecs of water … but they have released 2 lakh cusecs of water without informing us… every year wehave to face this problem for no fault of ours and lakhs of our people get affected and thousands of hectares of land get inundated causing losses worth crores.”
In her letter to the Prime Minister she wrote “The entire flood protection system managed through different dams including state barrages both on West Bengal and Jharkhand side are very old. Due toyears of siltation and lack of proper maintenance the water holding capacity has reduced,”
She said “we have been complaining against this practice for years but nothing has been done as a result of which the State is suffering.” A tweet from the Prime Minister’s office later said that he had assured of all support to Bengal. Banerjee had called up Modi after conducting a survey of the flood-hit areas.
She visited the worst-hit areas in Amta and Udainarainpur in Howrah district. At least 15 people have died, and around three lakh displaced after heavy rain lashed parts of south Bengal.
Meanwhile rejecting the Chief Minister’s allegations that arbitrary decision of the DVC was responsible for the Bengal floods the Corporation authorities said that “Blaming DVC for flood is unjustified as the DVC only implements the decision of the committee on water regulations. State government's consent is taken before the discharge of water and DVC issues warning to district administrations.”