Didi talks to Soren, lifts J'khand border blockade after 20 hrs

KULTI/DHANBAD/RANCHI: Bengal lifted its border blockade against Jharkhand around 6.30pm Friday, opening the floodgates for stalled traffic that stretched up to 30km at some places during the 20-hour face-off triggered by CM Mamata Banerjee accusing Damodar Valley Corporation of "flooding Bengal to save Jharkhand".

The deadlock involving the two states governed by INDIA bloc allies TMC and JMM was broken by Mamata and her Jharkhand counterpart Hemant Soren having a series of telephonic discussions through the day, sources said.

Mamata wrote to PM Modi, seeking his intervention in stopping flooding in Bengal because of water release by DVC. She said Bengal would "disengage entirely" from the PSU and its projects in the state if the Centre acted unilaterally.

Union jal shakti minister C R Paatil disputed the CM's allegation , saying decisions pertaining to release of water from the Maithon and Panchet dams in Jharkhand during heavy rain were always made by a committee that included representatives of Bengal.

Paatil said it was on Bengal's request DVC agreed to cut water release by 50% between Sept 14 and 17. Heavy rainfall on Sept 16-17 made it imperative to scale up water release "to avoid a catastrophic impact on south Bengal due to possible dam failures", Paatil said.

He pointed out that water release was limited to 2.5 lakh cusecs, while the inflow to these dams was 4.2 lakh cusecs.

More than 1,000sq km across 11 districts of south Bengal are battling floods, with around five million people affected. Casualties over the past week stand at 26.

"The stalemate has ended. Movement of commercial vehicles into West Bengal has begun through all the inter-state border points, including Jamshedpur and Dhanbad," Jharkhand home secretary Vandana Dadel told TOI.

After Bengal Police barred trucks and other commercial vehicles from Jharkhand, JMM termed it a move "made in haste and unreasonable".

A group of CPI(ML) workers blocked the Jharkhand-bound road near the Maithon border Friday , complicating the situation. BJP's Kulti MLA Ajay Podder visited Duburdihi checkpoint and asked police to show the govt order to seal the border. He and his supporters were briefly involved in an altercation with the cops.

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