Kolkata, 4 August (H.S.) -West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has launched a scathing attack on the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC), accusing the central government-run agency of gross negligence in water management that she says has caused widespread flooding across the state’s southern districts. In a strongly worded post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Monday, Banerjee described the situation as a “man-made disaster,” not a natural calamity.

According to the Chief Minister, the volume of water discharged by DVC into Bengal’s downstream regions has increased thirty-fold over the past two years. She claimed that in 2025, DVC released 50,287 lakh cubic metres of water during the June–July period, compared to just 4,535 lakh cubic metres in 2024 — an elevenfold rise from the previous year, and thirty times more than the volume discharged in 2023.

“This unimaginable and abrupt release of water has devastated our districts. Crops have been destroyed, embankments have collapsed, roads have suffered extensive damage, and thousands have been displaced,” Banerjee wrote. “There is a deeper conspiracy behind this.”

She further alleged that DVC is operating under a politically motivated agenda, describing it as yet another example of what she termed the “anti-Bengal mindset” of central agencies. “Like many other central institutions, DVC is functioning as a tool in the hands of a particular political structure being imposed across the country,” she said.

This is not the first time Banerjee has expressed her discontent with the DVC. On July 15, she had chaired a high-level meeting at the state secretariat, Nabanna, to assess the flood situation and had made similar accusations. “DVC is releasing massive amounts of water without any coordination with Bengal authorities, simply to protect its own infrastructure. We’ve been grappling with this issue for the past 14 years without any resolution,” she had stated.

Flooding has been particularly severe in districts such as Paschim Medinipur, Hooghly, and Howrah, where heavy rainfall and swelling rivers have led to prolonged waterlogging over the past two months. The Chief Minister has previously written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging his intervention and requesting that dredging operations be undertaken for rivers and canals under DVC’s jurisdiction. Banerjee has argued that proper dredging would allow these rivers to absorb an additional four lakh cubic metres of water, potentially mitigating future flooding.

Hindusthan Samachar / Satya Prakash Singh