Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banejee on Tuesday blamed lack of proper dredging in the barrages for the flood-like situation in some parts of the state.
Banerjee constituted a monitoring cell under Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha to keep a tab of the situation round-the-clock, with parts of Murshidabad, Malda and Udaynarayanpur in Howrah district being affected due to heavy rainfall, coupled with release of water from the barrages.
She chaired a high-level meeting with all stakeholders at Nabanna to ensure preparedness for flood, if it occurs, with the weather office predicting more rainfall in the next three days at Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.
"I have written several times to the concerned authorities to take measures for dredging so that the barrages could hold more water. But they have not done so. There has hardly been any dredging at Farakka barrage so when there is heavy rain in Bihar, parts of our state get flooded. DVC's Tenughat Dam in Jharkhand is also holding water less than its intake due to lack of dredging and is compelled to release water that flows into parts of Bengal, causing flood-like situation," Banerjee told reporters after the meeting.
According to a senior official at Nabanna, DVC has released around 70,000-75,000 cusecs of water on Monday, resulting in inundation mostly in delta areas. Heavy rains in Bihar have resulted in spate at Phulahar river, resulting in inundation in some pockets of Malda.
"Our state's location is such that when there is heavy rainfall in Nepal or Bhutan, water flows to parts of North Bengal," Banerjee pointed out. She assigned her cabinet ministers to monitor the situation in districts and take necessary action, if there is flood.
Rajib Banerjee and Arup Roy have been given the responsibility of Howrah, Firhad Hakim of Hooghly, Javed Khan and Golam Rabbani of Malda, Suvendu Adhikari of Murshidabad, Subrata Mukherjee and Suvendu Adhikari of Midnapore and Moloy Ghatak of Burdwan.
"Directions have been issued to the state Agriculture department to carry out a survey of the damage to crops, if any, due to excess rainfall and take necessary steps to make up for the damage," Banerjee said.
State Agriculture minister Asish Banerjee said that he has already sought a report from a number of districts regarding the details of rainfall and the condition of agricultural activities.
"We have all measures in place to rehabilitate people to a safer place, if required," a senior official of state Disaster Management department said.