Before independence, the River Damodar was known as the "River of Sorrows" as it used to flood many areas of Bardhaman, Hugli, Haora and Medinipur districts. Even now the floods sometimes affect the lower Damodar Valley, but the devastations have reduced. The floods used to occur almost every year, causing huge damage in some years. Historically great floods of the Damodar were observed in the years — 1770, 1855, 1866, 1873–74, 1875–76, 1884–85, 1891– 92, 1897, 1900, 1907, 1913, 1927, 1930, 1935 and 1943. In four of these floods (1770, 1855, 1913 and 1943) most of Bardhaman town was flooded. In more recent times, severe flooding in the Lower Damodar area was witnessed in the years 1964, 1978, 2000, 2009, 2014, 2017 and 2021.

In response to the catastrophic flood of 1943, a committee was formed by the Government of West Bengal and following its suggestions to have an authority similar to the Tennessee Valley Authority in the USA, the Damodar Valley Corporation came into existence on 7th July, 1948. Four multipurpose dams were constructed during the period 1948 to 1959 - Maithon Dam, Panchet Dam, Tilaiya Dam and Konar Dam. These dams have designated flood reserve capacity in order to moderate flood peaks to a magnitude below the safe carrying capacity of the downstream channel. This is in addition to storage of water to meet industrial, municipal and domestic requirements in West Bengal & Jharkhand. In addition, a single purpose reservoir (to meet the drinking water requirements of Bokaro and Chas) was constructed on the Damodar, at Tenughat (without flood storage) later in the year 1974. Even through it was not part of the DVC system initially, it became part of the system in the recent years.

Lower Damodar area adjoining the two distributaries of main Damodar, i.e. Mundeswari River and Lower Damodar (Amta) Channel measuring around 1887 km² is spread over 2 Municipalities and 20 Administrative Development Blocks. The area is historically flood prone. Around 0.461 million people and 335 km² of cropped area in this zone are affected annually due to flood related inundation.