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Bengal

Capacity of Durgapur Barrage down by 35%, state to take up desilting

The Centre's apathy in taking up desiltation work of Durgapur Barrage and Damodar river continues despite being repeatedly informed that the water reserve capacity of the barrage has already reduced leading to the "man-made floods" in Bengal.
However, the ordeal of the people of South Bengal will be soon a matter of the past as the project taken up for desiltation of Lower Damodar River by the Mamata Banerjee government with the support of World Bank will start working after the Monsoon in 2018.
The issue was first raised by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in 2011. Subsequently, the state government had left no stone unturned to let the Centre initiate the desiltation work. But all requests have fallen on deaf ears. On Thursday, too, the Chief Minister said the "man-made floods" would not have taken place if the Centre had carried out the desiltation work at the right time. The Central Water Commission (CWC) in a report had clearly stated in 2011 that the water reserve capacity of the barrage that had been constructed in 1955 had reduced by around 35 percent.
In 2015, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources accompanied by senior officials of the CWC had visited the Durgapur Barrage to assess the condition. The committee had stated that immediate measures were needed to ensure complete storage capacity of 10.273 million cubic metres of water in Durgapur Barrage and desiltation of Damodar.
Taking note that the Centre is not considering measures to give the people of districts including Howrah, Hooghly, Burdwan and Bankura some respite from heavy inundation in their villages every year by carrying out the desiltation work, the state Irrigation department has engaged an expert organisation to carry out a detailed study which was conducted in 2014-15 and was submitted to the Centre. Side-by-side, the detailed project report for desiltation of Lower Damodar involving a cost Rs 2,200 crore was also submitted to the Central government.
"Apart from giving some observations on which the state government had given the necessary reply on an immediate basis, nothing was done by the Centre after the project report was submitted three years ago. We kept sending letters, but it failed to raise their conscience," said state Irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee. He asked: "Why the work for Maithon dam and desiltation of Panchet dam has not taken place yet despite the CWC preparing the DPR in 2012?" Finding no other alternative despite repeated requests to the Centre, the state government will take up the work of desilting of Lower Damodar involving a cost of Rs 2,768 crore.
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