Flooding in Bangladesh was not due to the opening of the dam, claims India

The eastern region of Bangladesh has been hit by severe floods. It has been alleged that such a situation has occurred in Bangladesh due to the opening of the Dambur hydropower project in the Indian state of Tripura. The news of India's opening of dams has also been published in the Indian media.

However, the Indian government has said that the flood in Bangladesh was not due to the opening of the dam of the Dumbur hydropower project on the Gomtir river.

This information was given in a statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country on Thursday.

It is said that due to the opening of Dumbur Dam upstream of Gomti River in Tripura, flood situation has arisen in the eastern border districts of Bangladesh. We are concerned about spreading such news in Bangladesh. This is not correct. We would like to mention that the catchment area of ​​Gomti river flowing through India and Bangladesh has received the highest rainfall of this year for the last few days. Flooding in Bangladesh is mainly caused by water from this large catchment downstream of the dam.

According to the statement, Dumbur Dam is located quite far from the Bangladesh-India border. It is located 120 km upstream from Bangladesh. It is a low height (about 30 m) dam that generates electricity. Bangladesh also gets 40 MW of electricity from here. We have three water level monitoring sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2 along about 120 km of river. Heavy rains have continued since August 21 in the entire Tripura and neighboring districts along the Bangladesh border. Automatic releases have been observed in dams during heavy flows. The Amarpur station is part of a bilateral protocol under which we are transmitting real-time flood data to Bangladesh. According to the data, increasing flood trend data has been provided to Bangladesh till 3 PM IST on August 21. Today at 6 PM IST due to flooding, there was a power outage resulting in communication problems.

Flooding in common rivers between India and Bangladesh is a joint problem causing suffering to the people of both sides and requires close mutual cooperation to resolve it.

As the two countries share 54 common transboundary rivers, cooperation on river water is an important part of our bilateral engagement. We are committed to solving water resources and river water management issues and mutual concerns through bilateral consultations and technical discussions.

By the way, on Wednesday several Indian media reported the terrible flood situation in Tripura due to continuous rain for several days. It said that a warning has been issued for the residents along the river Gomti. The gates of the dam have been opened due to the increase in the water level of Doombar reservoir due to heavy rains.

News media reported that due to flood, the dam of Dumbu hydropower project has been opened. And that is why water is entering Bangladesh.

Bangladesh /SBT