Damodar basin being used to generate power rather than control man-made floods: Minister

The shift from the original motto of controlling floods in the areas adjoining Damodar basin to generate power in order to augment revenue is the main cause of the yearly man-made disaster in Bengal, said the state irrigation minister Rajib Banerjee in the state Assembly on Thursday.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had slammed the Centre for the man-made floods and its lackadaisical attitude in controlling the same.

Explaining the reasons behind the man-made floods, the state Irrigation minister said in the Assembly that there are four main reasons that led to the flood. He said DVC was set up with a purpose of controlling floods. But now, the main focus is power generation for which water was kept reserved more than the permitted capacity as per the guide curve till July 19 in Panchet and Tenughat, which is under the Jharkhand government's jurisdiction. As a result, a huge quantity of water had to be released when there was heavy rainfall accompanied by high tide from July 22.

The guide curve or the water storage limit of Tenughat reservoir is 822 feet but the water level in it on July 19 was 16 feet above the stipulated level.

Similarly in Panchet, it was flowing at 418 feet on the same date which was again 6 feet above the guide curve level of 412 feet.

Banerjee said repeated letters were sent to both Jharkhand and DVC authorities from June 6 onwards requesting them to release water in phases so that it doesn't need to release water at one go when there will be heavy rainfall. "If the measures would have been taken from when we had started sending them communiqués in this regard, then at least 1 lakh cusec less water would have been released during torrential rain in the last week of July. But the requests fell on

deaf ears and they finally released the water at one go that led to the man-made floods," Banerjee said.

Interestingly, DVC was initially under the Ministry of Water Resources but later it was brought under the Power Ministry. As per the actual design, the plan was to set up a total of seven dams to control floods in the lower Damodar basin. But only four — Konark, Tilaiya, Panchet and Mython — were set up but the three other proposed including Bolpahari and Bokaro did not come up. Setting up of the three more dams would have managed to control the floods in a much better way. Moreover, the total capacity of the four reservoirs under DVC as per the design was supposed to be 29 lakh acre feet and the flood storage capacity was 15.91 lakh acre feet. But with the problem of encroachment and heavy siltation, the flood storage capacity has reduced to 6.6 lakh acre feet.

The state Irrigation minister further said the Centre has not only reduced funds for Kandi masterplan, but is yet to release funds for more than Rs 200 crore the work for which has already been done by the state government for irrigational purposes.

On Tuesday, the Chief Minister had slammed the Centre for its lackadaisical attitude towards Bengal as initiative was taken to check the floods that has become phenomenal every year and she has urged everyone while addressing in this regard in the state Assembly to move together to the Centre. On Thursday, both Asit Mitra of the Congress and Anisur Rahaman of the Left Front said that they are ready to be a part of the all-party delegation to the Centre to bring an end to every year's problem of man-made floods.