Mamata Banerjee demanded Bhutan compensate for the losses suffered during the recent deluge that devastated vast areas in north Bengal’s districts of Darjeeling, Alipurduar and Jalpaiguri.
“Floods were caused because of the waters released by Bhutan. I believe they should compensate,” Mamata said at Nagrakata during the second day of her visit to north Bengal.
“Nobody gives us any money. Neither the Centre nor anyone else. The Bengal government has to bear the expense for everything.”
Over 30 people were killed and thousands rendered homeless in the recent floods and landslides caused by heavy rains in the area. Unconfirmed reports stated over 12,000 houses were damaged and half of them completely collapsed plus massive loss to roads and bridges in the region, farmlands and tea gardens.
While touring north Bengal last week soon after disaster struck, Mamata had blamed the neighbouring state of Sikkim and the Himalayan country Bhutan for releasing water into the rivers passing through the riverine north Bengal districts.
Arriving at Hasimara on Sunday, Mamata had announced ex gratia Rs five lakh for the kin of those killed in the calamity and home guard jobs for one member of the family. Rs 1.2 lakh for those whose houses were affected and awards for the personnel involved in relief operations.
The chief minister also suggested the district administration to extract dolomite from the river waters.
“Dolomite from Bhutan has caused tremendous harm. I would suggest extracting the dolomite and raising money for the relief operations,” Mamata told the assembled officials that also included the chief secretary Manoj Pant.
Bhutan is one of the largest exporters of dolomite in the world, which is used as a source for magnesium metal and of magnesia, a component of refractory bricks. Dolomite is also used as an aggregate for cement and bitumen mixes instead of limestone and also as a flux in blast furnaces.
Apart from dolomite, huge numbers of logs also made their way from Bhutan to north Bengal during the floods.