Alipurduar: Bhutan’s National Centre for Hydrology and Meteorology will henceforth send detailed information about rain prediction 72 hours in advance to all the irrigation departments of West Bengal.
This will help significantly in mitigating the damages caused by flash floods in North Bengal’s Dooars and prepare proper contingency measures.
West Bengal has been vocal about the Dooars flooding in the Indo-Bhutan River Commission as well as in NITI Aayog meetings.
Discussions were going on with Bhutan at the administrative level, too. Normally, Bhutan had responded to the West Bengal Irrigation Department and sent rain predictions.
This will help in flood control in Dooars. 71 rivers flow from Bhutan into Alipurduar district, including Jaldhaka, Diana, Pana Basra, Reti, Sukriti, Sankosh, among others.
Whether it rains very heavily in Bhutan, a flood situation would develop in the Dooars. Without a prediction about the rains, it was becoming increasingly difficult to meet these challenges.
West Bengal has been insisting on the formation of the India-Bhutan River Commission as well as rain predictions from Bhutan.
Finally, Bhutan had agreed to inform about these rain predictions from its six weather stations through their National Centre for Hydrology and Meteorology.
The services have started over the last three days. Every day, the prediction information from Bhutan’s weather department reaches West Bengal’s Irrigation Department’s North East control room.
From these control rooms only, all rivers flowing through Jalpaiguri, Coochbehar and Alipurduar districts and Siliguri sub-division are monitored.
With the information in hand, the state will be better prepared to handle this flood situation from now on.
