Damodar River (Pron: /ˈdʌmoˌdaː/) is a river flowing across the Indian states of Jharkhand and West Bengal. The valley is rich in mineral resources and is home to large-scale mining and industrial activity. It was also known as the Sorrow of Bengal because of its ravaging floods in the plains of West Bengal. The construction of several dams on the Damodar and its tributaries has helped control some of the flooding.
Damodar means "rope around the belly", derived from Sanskrit दाम (dama) "rope" and उदर (udara) "belly". Damodar is also another name given to the Hindu god Krishna because his foster-mother, Yashoda, had tied him to a large urn.
The Damodar is a rain fed river. It originates in Khamarpat Hill on Chotanagpur Plateau in Jharkhand. It travels for a distance of before joining with the Hugli River.
Damodar River has a number of tributaries and subtributaries, such as Barakar, Konar, Bokaro, Haharo, Jamunia, Ghari, Guaia, Khadia and Bhera. The Damodar and the Barakar trifurcate the Chota Nagpur plateau. The rivers pass through hilly areas with great force, sweeping away whatever lies in their path. Two bridges on the Grand Trunk Road near Barhi in Hazaribagh district were torn down by the Barakar: the great stone bridge in 1913 and the subsequent iron bridge in 1946.
The Chota Nagpur Plateau receives an average annual rainfall of around , almost all of it in the monsoon months between June and August. The huge volume of water that flows down the Damodar and its tributaries during the monsoons used to be a fury in the upper reaches of the valley. In the lower valley it used to overflow its banks and flood large areas.
Damodar River was earlier known as the "River of Sorrows" as it used to flood many areas of Bardhaman, Hooghly, Howrah and Medinipur districts.
The floods were virtually an annual ritual. In some years the damage was probably more. Many of the great floods of the Damodar are recorded in history — 1770, 1855, 1866, 1873–74, 1875–76, 1884–85, 1891–92, 1897, 1900, 1907, 1913, 1927, 1930, 1935 and 1943.
