The non-cooperation of the Central Water Commission (CWC) would affect the desperate bid of the state Irrigation and Waterways department to check floods during the monsoon.
Rajib Banerjee, the state Irrigation minister, held a meeting on Monday with representatives of all the agencies involved with flood management including CWC, India Meteorological Department (IMD), National Informatics Centre (NIC), BSNL and Webel to take stock of the preparations being made ahead of the monsoon that is predicted to set in during the beginning of July.
A deputy director level official of CWC was sent to attend the crucial meeting. However, he failed to provide any information related to the state, saying that he had joined recently and was not conversant with developments in this field.
At the same time, the state government did not receive any information about the volume of rainfall and water in the reservoirs of Bhutan, which is crucial in checking floods in the state. The districts of North Bengal, including Alipurduar and parts of Jalpaiguri are affected when water is released from Bhutan.
"We cannot interfere in this matter directly. Thus, we wrote to the CWC, seeking its intervention in this connection before the monsoon in 2016. However, there have been no positive developments in this connection yet. We will write again, seeking immediate intervention by the CWC," said Banerjee.
She added that the state government has made repeated attempts to bring unified control over reservoirs in neighboruing states, so that no place in Bengal is affected by floods. However, she claimed that no proper action had been taken in this regard either.
"We have told members of the CWC in Monday's meeting to do something in this regard and there will be another meeting with the authorities of CWC on June 16," the minister said, adding that there are clear instructions from Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that water cannot be released from any reservoir, whether in Bengal or in the neighbouring states, without consultation with the state government. This was mentioned in strong words in the meeting held in Jalosampad Bhavan in Salt Lake on Monday.
During the meeting, the minister also expressed his annoyance over the delay in initiating a video conference with Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) on crucial issues like avoiding floods or flood-like situations.
IMD is yet to give priority to setting up a radar in North Bengal to ensure better weather forecasts in the region.
"They had sought land from us and we are ready to give it. Despite that, the process of setting up the radar is yet to start," Banerjee said. In the meeting on Monday, the IMD officials informed that the monsoon in North Bengal will set in within the next 72 hours but there is no such prediction for the districts of South Bengal.