Dam opened due to excessive pressure of water: India

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs has claimed that the country has not opened any dam in the eastern border region of Bangladesh, the dam has been opened automatically due to excessive pressure of water.

“We have seen concerns being expressed in Bangladesh that the current situation of flood in districts on the eastern borders of Bangladesh has been caused by opening of the Dumbur dam upstream of the Gumti River in Tripura. This is factually not correct,” said the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement on flood situation on Thursday (August 22).

Floods on the common rivers between India and Bangladesh are a shared problem inflicting sufferings to people on both sides, and requires close mutual cooperation towards resolving them, said the Indian side.

India pointed out that the catchment areas of Gumti river that flows through India and Bangladesh have witnessed heaviest rains of this year over the last few days.

“The flood in Bangladesh is primarily due to waters from these large catchments downstream of the dam,” the MEA said in the statement.

As two countries sharing 54 common cross-border rivers, river water cooperation is an important part of bilateral engagement, India said.

“We remain committed to resolving issues and mutual concerns in water resources and river water management through bilateral consultations and technical discussions,” according to MEA.

The Dumbur dam is located quite far from the border - over 120 Km upstream of Bangladesh. It is a low height (about 30m) dam that generates power that feeds into a grid and from which Bangladesh also draws 40MW power from Tripura.

Along the about 120 Km river course we have three water level observation sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2, said MEA.

Heavy rainfall has been continuing since 21 August in the whole of Tripura and adjoining districts of Bangladesh.

“In the event of heavy inflow, automatic releases have been observed,” MEA said.

Amarpur station is in part of a bilateral protocol under which “we are transmitting realtime flood data to Bangladesh.”

Data showing rising trend has been supplied to Bangladesh up to 1500 hrs on 21 August 2024.

At 1800 hours, due to flooding, there was power outage leading to problems of communication.

“Still, we have tried to maintain communication through other means created for urgent transmission of data,” said the MEA.