Need Centre’s intervention to control floods in Dooars: Irrigation minister

Kolkata: State Irrigation minister Partha Bhowmick demanded the Centre’s intervention in controlling floods in the Dooars region. He urged BJP’s chief whip in the Assembly Manoj Tigga to cooperate in sending an all-party delegation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Bhowmick, on Tuesday, said Dooars gets flooded as water enters these regions from Bhutan. He also apprehended that if water from Bhutan could not be controlled, Alipurduar would also get flooded. The situation will improve if the Centre takes up the issue with the Bhutan government.

The demand from the state government came up barely three days after a Central team had asked the Assam government to submit geo-tagged photographs of real-time damage to infrastructure due to floods. The Centre suggested the Assam government include a list of the damage caused to houses and agriculture due to floods in the final memorandum for central assistance. The suggestions were placed by a seven-member inter-ministerial central team in a meeting with top state government officials last week.

The state government and the ruling party was earlier eager to send a one-party delegation to the Centre to press for funds for curbing severe erosion of river banks along Bhagirathi, particularly in Malda and Murshidabad after the Leader of the Opposition last year turned down the proposal of sending a joint delegation to the Central government demanding funds in this regard.

State Parliamentary Affairs minister Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay during an Assembly session last year had floated the proposal of sending an all-party delegation seeking funds for curbing river bank erosion, which has been posing a serious problem.

Chattopadhyay had called up Leader of Opposition Suvendu Adhikari and had spoken in detail regarding the proposal to the Central government. The latter had wanted a written proposal on behalf of the state government and accordingly, after taking the nod of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, the matter was sent in writing to Adhikari. However, the latter refused to accept it. The delegation could not be sent due to the apathy of the BJP.

The Irrigation minister has, therefore, urged for Tigga’s cooperation so that an all-party delegation can meet the PM and the flood issue in North Bengal is resolved. “Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already allotted Rs 100 crore to check erosion along the Bhagirathi. Out of this, works have been initiated against a cost of more than Rs 48 crore,” Bhowmick said. He also reminded that the Centre is not cooperating in the river embankment works undertaken in the Sunderbans.