West Bengal opens border with Jharkhand after 24-hour closure
The border was closed on Thursday after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Damodar Valley Corporation of ‘flooding Bengal to save Jharkhand’.
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The West Bengal government on Friday reopened its border with Jharkhand for the movement of trucks for inter-state trade after keeping it closed for nearly 24 hours, The Times of India reported.
The state government closed the border on Thursday after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the Damodar Valley Corporation of “flooding Bengal to save Jharkhand”. She blamed the corporation, which operates under the Union Ministry of Power, for the flooding in 11 districts in the state, The Hindu reported.
The corporation is a statutory body that manages the Damodar Valley Project, which comprises four dams in Jharkhand on the Damodar and Konar rivers and provides water for irrigation and power generation.
Check posts at the inter-state border in West Bengal’s Paschim Medinipur, Purulia and Paschim Bardhaman districts were subsequently sealed, stranding thousands of trucks.
Banerjee cited the increasing water levels near National Highway 16 in Paschim Medinipur as a reason for the closure. “The Jharkhand border will be sealed for three days,” The Hindu quoted her as saying. “I do not want the trucks and cars entering our state to get submerged in water.”
After visiting several flood-affected areas on Thursday, Banerjee claimed that the Jharkhand government had the required infrastructure to prevent the floods.
“The floods are because of water released by the central government organisation DVC [Damodar...
