Chief minister Mamata Banerjee went hammer and tongs at the authorities of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) and thoses of Farakka Barrage for not dredging the portions of the rivers under their control which leads to flooding of parts of the state. She was replying to Congress legislator of Harishchandrapur, Malda, Mustaq Alam, who sought the chief minister’s intervention about the flooding of a part of his constituency.

“I am aware that the constituency being referred to gets flooded as DVC and Farakka barrage authorities do not conduct dredging operations,” the chief minister said. I have been there in 2017 during the floods, she said

Incidentally, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar conducted aerial survey of the flood affected portion of Bihar during this period, state irrigation minister, Subhendu Adhikari earlier said. But the chief minister went by road to visit the flood-affected areas, he added.

Not only Malda, parts of Hooghly, Bankura and Burdwan were also flooded, the chief minister said. Monsoon in Jharkhand is a cause of concern for this state, she said.

Though the river Sankosh rises from Bhutan, Jalpaiguri is flooded when it is in spate, the chief minister said. There was no response from the Centre when we raised the issue of excavating Sankosh, she said, replying to a question on the issue from leader of the Opposition, Abdul Mannan.

The DVC has to be requested not to release too much water from Tenughat, the chief minister said. Our state is adversely affected by incidents occuring in other states, she said.

The source of some of the woes of the state can be traced outside its boundaries, the chief minister said. When a breach is made in Purnea embankment in Bihar by some people, the government of the neighbouring state says it can’t be blamed, she said, underscoring her point. We have taken it up with Union government and state government of Bihar, the chief minister said. We are doing our best to combat the problem, she said. Earlier, Congress MLA Samar Mukherjee drew the attention of the irrigation minister about the rivers Ganga and Pagla getting merged with Padma and posing a threat to north Bengal.