Bengal flood toll 85; Mamata calls all-party meet

The flood situation in West Bengal showed improvement on Wednesday on account of little or no rainfall since Tuesday and a reduced quantity of water discharge from the barrages upstream, as the death toll rose to 85.

24 Parganas and other three south Bengal districts are worst affected. “I have also requested DVC authorities not to release any more water“, she said.

“The flooding in Hooghly and Howrah districts has worsened and will deteriorate a bit further as DVC (Damodar Valley Corporation) has released more water”, she said. Ms Banerjee further added that she had already called Union power minister Piyush Goyal urging him to take up the issue with DVC. Dredging is necessary. DVC needs modernisation and dredging work needs to be carried out.

Sources in the five-member DVRRC committee said the meeting would primarily listen to the issues raised by the West Bengal government, represented by the chief engineer of irrigation, and try to address them to an extent possible.

Banerjee has sought appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the flood scenario and would be heading for New Delhi on August 11.

I will be preparing a detailed report to discuss over the financial aid in this matter.

Meanwhile, the opposition Left Front targeted the Mamata government over the flood situation, saying the chief minister’s actions like spending night at the secretariat proved that her administration doesn’t have efficient people to deal with the situation.

Rajib Banerjee on Monday said DVC has released 90,000 cusecs of water since Sunday, adding to the woes of flood-hit residents. Fifty three municipalities, two municipal corporations have also been hit due to the flood. I will brief the prime minister about the damages we are facing due to floods in our state. There has been crop loss across an area of 8,20,435 hectares.

At least 3.6 lakh people have been sheltered in 2,213 relief camps, but there were complaints from the inundated villages of lack of relief materials.