The Ministry of External Affairs Thursday said opening the gates of Dumbur Dam, located over river Gumti in Tripura is not behind the current flood situation in the districts on the eastern border of Bangladesh.

In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs said, 'We would like to state that it is the catchment areas of the Gumti River flowing through India and Bangladesh which have received the heaviest rainfall of this year in the last few days.'

It has also said that the catchment areas of the Gumti River, flowing through both India and Bangladesh, have seen the heaviest rainfall since this year in the last few days. Now, one of the primary reasons for floods in Bangladesh is due to the water from these huge catchment areas downstream of the dam. Also he said, the Dumbur dam is quite far away from the border - 120 km upstream from Bangladesh. This is a low-height dam with height about 30 meters that generates power and feeds into the grid from which Bangladesh also draws 40 MW power from Tripura.

"We have three water level monitoring sites at Amarpur, Sonamura and Sonamura 2 along about 120 km of the river course. Heavy rains have been continuing throughout Tripura and adjoining districts of Bangladesh since August 21. In case of heavy water flow, spontaneous seepage of water has been observed," the release said.