Mamata Banerjee on Monday said her government would stand by those who lost their houses and whose crops were damaged in the floods caused by the waters released from the dams of central utility DVC after she held a review of the flood situation in East Burdwan district.

“The district authorities would prepare a list of those who lost their houses due to the floods. The list would have to be sent to (panchayat secretary P.) Ulaganathan. They will check whether their names figure in the list of 11 lakh beneficiaries for whom the state would release funds to construct homes in December,” said the chief minister after the meeting in Burdwan.

Sources in the panchayat department said though any instruction in this regard was yet to reach the department, they have heard that the state would include the names of the flood victims whose houses were completely damaged in the list of beneficiaries of rural housing scheme.

Since the Centre stopped release of funds under the rural housing scheme for the past two years, the state has decided to release the first installment to the 11.36 lakh beneficiaries in December from its coffers.

“Now, if names of the flood victims whose thatched houses were completely damaged figure in the list, they will get ₹60,000 in December as the first installment to construct their houses. In case of the victims whose names don’t figure in the list, their names could be included on priority basis. In that case the number of beneficiaries could increase from 11.36 lakh,” said a senior government official.

Mamata also assured the farmers whose crops were damaged in the floods that they would get compensation under crop insurance schemes.

“People whose crops have been destroyed and the paddy fields were flooded should not worry. Their fields should be measured and they should receive the crop insurance fund,” she said.

Sources in the agriculture department said that though no estimate could be done yet as waters did not recede from the fields yet, it was estimated that more than 4 lakh hectares of crop sown in the kharif (monsoon) season could be underwater for several days.

“The list of damaged roads would be prepared by the PWD and work should be done to repair them,” she added.

Mamata said that Bengal was flooded only because waters were released from Jharkhand without giving prior information to the state.

“Bengal is a riverine region, peppered with and surrounded by water bodies. Bengal’s position is like a boat.... We start worrying when it rains in Jharkhand. They release water in Bengal to save themselves,” she said.

“When the water reaches the stage of causing floods due to the lack of dredging, they release water. Even due to the issue of Ganga erosion, Malda and Murshidabad along with parts of Bihar become flooded. However, Bihar cuts out dams and transfers the water to Bengal,” she added. “Ganga Action Plan, Flood control and DVC are under the Central government. But, they have not done anything regarding these plans. Because of which, houses of lakhs of people are submerged.”

She tore into the BJP over its alleged priorities. “The amount of money that is spent during elections.… The amount of money that (the BJP) spends in setting up buildings and statues — if we get even a fourth of that money, we can implement the flood control measures and the Ganga Action Plan in an exponentially better way,” she said.