The Bengal government has decided to draw sand from the Teesta river after a gap of five years.
Sources said the West Bengal Mineral Development & Trading Corporation Limited (WBMDTCL) has issued tenders, seeking bids to extract sand from four locations of the river.
“We had sent a proposal to the state government so that sand could be extracted from the Teesta. We have learned that the WBMDTCL has issued tenders to draw sand from four locations of the Teesta riverbed,” said Shama Parveen, the district magistrate of Jalpaiguri.
The decision has come as a relief for the officials of the state irrigation department and river experts. After the glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) due to the outburst of the South Lhonak Lake in Sikkim in October last year, engineers of the department and experts pointed out that the river bed of the Teesta has risen by four to eight feet in different locations.
