State to rope in agency for desilting rivers, barrages to check floods

KOLKATA: In a significant stride towards increasing the carrying capacity of the rivers and avoid natural disasters due to sudden rise in water level, the West Bengal Mineral Development and Trading Corporation Ltd (WBMDTCL) is roping in agencies, which will not only desilt rivers or barrages but would also carry away the extracted material by paying a royalty.

Previously, the state government would engage an agency for such work and would have to pay from the exchequer.

"The government would spend crores of rupees every year for this exercise. But in the current procedure, with WBMDTCL taking up the responsibility, as per request of state Irrigation and Waterways department, the government is earning revenue in the form of royalty as the agencies after desilting are carrying the clay themselves and paying for that,"a senior Nabanna official said.

The state Irrigation and Waterways department has made an assessment and accordingly sent a list of seven locations for lifting of boulders or silt by WBMDTCL. The locations are two in river Damodar in Burdwan, two at Subarnarekha in West Midnapore, one at Birbhum and one each at Jalpaiguri and Alipurduar. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee at a number of meetings has raised concerns over rivers' normal flow getting blocked due to accumulation of sand and silt in south Bengal and boulders in North Bengal.

"We are also tying up with the brick field owners so that they can have easy access to sand and silt and do not go everywhere for the same,"a senior official of WBMDTCL said.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) needs a huge amount of clay for putting up the same at the base during road construction for better longevity.They would have to face a lot of difficulty looking for a place, where there is a high availability of clay. "We have made an agreement with them so that they can carry away the silt or sand as per their requirement as soon as it is lifted,"he added.