Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting him for measures to desilt DVC’s dams to increase their water-holding capacity so that Bengal was spared regular floods.

The letter was sent after her phone conversation with Modi in the morning on the flood-like situation in some south Bengal districts, which she termed “manmade”.

“Kindly refer to our telephonic conversation today on the grave manmade flood situation in some districts of West Bengal due to unprecedented release of water from the DVC dams at Panchet, Maithon and Tenughat...”she wrote.

“Despite raising the issue to you and DVC way back in 2015, for the urgent need for renovation, upgradation and modernisation of assets of DVC and other allied systems, inter alia, essential desiltation and dredging, to prevent the recurrent wrath of floods in West Bengal and most importantly increasing water holding capacity of the DVC dams by around 1.2 lakh acre-feet, the issue still remains unaddressed,” she added.

Mamata informed Modi through her letter that 16 lives had been lost after nearly 2 lakh cusecs of water got discharged from Panchet, Maithan and Tenughat dams (in Jharkhand) leading to severe flooding in Hooghly, Howrah, East Burdwan, West Burdwan, Birbhum and West Midnapore.

She wrote about the “unprecedented displacement, suffering and loss of livelihood of lakhs...”, adding that the Bengal government was assessing damages and would send a detailed report to the Centre.

Mamata also made specific proposals in her letter to enhance the water holding capacity of the dams of the DVC network, such as desiltation of Panchet dam and a ring embankment on Maithan dam.

Soon after the phone conversation, the PMO tweeted that Prime Minister spoke to the Bengal chief minister on the flood situation caused by water discharged from dams in parts of the state.

Thousands of people in at least 100 villages in three flood-hit districts, Howrah, Hooghly and West Midnapore, were inaccessible to the administration on Wednesday.

An official said if a problem is identified and nothing is done to save lives and livelihoods, it is the failure of the government. “In this case, the Centre should be at the receiving end,” he said.

Nabanna sources said Mamata told the PM that the DVC was not sending proper information to the state government before releasing dam water.

“The chief minister pointed out that the DVC had released nearly 2 lakh cusecs of water from its dams but had informed the state about 55,000 cusecs would be released a couple of days ago,” a source said, adding this information lacuna prevented the state government from evacuating people in advance.

“We had to release a maximum of 1.2 lakh cusecs of water a few days ago. Every time we released water, the state government was informed in advance,” said a DVC source.

Mamata on Wednesday visited flood-hit areas of Amta in Howrah. As her chopper could not fly in bad weather, she went by road. She had planned to visit flood-hit Udaynarayanpur in Howrah and Khanakul in Hooghly, but floods prevented her.

Sources in the disaster management department said death toll reached 23 while 1.13 lakh people had to be evacuated. In all, 361 relief camps have been set up where 43,000-odd people have taken shelter.

About 4 lakh hectares of farmland have gone under the water and the damage would be assessed only after the water recedes.