Mamata visits flood affected areas in south Bengal; inspects condition, offers flood relief

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited flood affected areas in south Bengal on Tuesday (August 5, 2025). Ms. Banerjee has blamed release of water from reservoirs of Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) for the inundation of multiple districts in the State. 

Throughout the day Ms. Banerjee was seen visiting multiple flood affected areas. She started with Arambagh in Hooghly district and spoke to flood-affected people in the area who have taken shelter in a rescue camp. With a bucket filled with khichdi, she served food to the affected people. 

Later in the day she headed to Ghatal in Paschim Medinipur district where thousands have been affected due to the rising water levels amidst heavy rains. Even though the rains have stopped for the past few days, the water has not receded in these areas. 

Ms. Banerjee visited Ghatal’s flood affected areas with Dipak Adhikari, MP from the area along with other government officials and MLAs and spoke to locals. 

“In certain areas central government used to give money for dredging, or Ganga embankment breach issues, but now they have stopped all funds. We bear the full load of releasing these funds,” Ms. Banerjee said standing in the waterlogged areas of Ghatal and addressed the flood-affected locals. 

Ghatal, a flood-prone town in south Bengal, has long demanded a permanent solution to its annual inundation. The recurring crisis led to the Ghatal Master Plan—a comprehensive flood management project in the works for decades. 

In the February 2025 State Budget, Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya called it “unfortunate” that the Centre hadn’t approved the plan. The State allocated ₹500 crore for dredging riverbeds and strengthening embankments across 10 major rivers.  

Implementation will begin in 2025 after the flood situation is controlled, but by June, the State accused the Centre of withholding adequate funds. 

DVC blamed for flooding 

Like in the past years, Ms. Banerjee has blamed the DVC water release for the flood in Bengal this year. DVC is a central agency that manages a network of dams in the Damodar River valley between West Bengal and Jharkhand. 

“They have not done dreading in the last 20 years. Why are they not doing it? We will not accept this. From next year we will plan and stop the water or redirect it when they release it,” Ms. Banerjee said on Tuesday.  

On Monday (August 4, 2025) she also said that there was a 11-fold increase in DVC’s water discharge in 2025, compared to 2024 is a systematic attempt to trigger floods in the State. 

State Minister for Irrigation and Waterways, Manas Ranjan Bhunia had also blamed the DVC mishandling of water release from their dams. 

However, top DVC officials refuted the claims and said that they have not released water beyond 70,000 cusecs in a day in 2025. “We have managed the situation very well. The rains have been abnormally high this year, but no lives have been lost due to flooding,” DVC official sources told The Hindu. He also highlighted that both West Bengal and Jharkhand government officials are present part of the committee which discusses the water release every time and water is not released without stakeholder advice. 

The State has been grappling with acute floods this year since June. Unusually high rain is one of the biggest causes behind the issue. Multiple districts in south Bengal like Hooghly, Howrah, Purba Medinipur, Paschim Medinipur, Bankura, and areas in north Bengal like Darjeeling, Kalimpong, and others are battling with severe rain, waterlogging, and landslides in many areas. Thousands of people and hundreds of villages have been hit by the floods.