The Damodar Valley is extending across Hazaribagh, Koderma, Dhanbad, Giridih, Bokaro and Chatra districts in Jharkhand and Bardhaman and Hooghly districts in West Bengal and partially some particular regions of Palamu, Ranchi, Lohardaga and Dumka districts in Jharkhand and Howrah, Bankura and Purulia districts in West Bengal with a command area of 24,235 sq Km.

The Damodar Valley has large reserves of coal and mica, and the area is a highly developed as an industrial belt. The Ruhr of India is referred to as the Damodar Valley by many because of its similarities with the Ruhr mining-industrial area of Germany. The dams on the Damodar River have a number of hydroelectric power plants. Of late, the Damodar has become one of the most contaminated rivers of India, with chemicals, mine effluents and poisonous wastes flowing into the river. The mines and industries located in the valley. Efforts are being made to reduce the level of pollution in the river

The Damodar Valley lies in the Chota Nagpur Plateau of the state of Jharkhand, India. It also extends to some parts of the state of West Bengal. The valley derives its name from the Damodar River, which arises from the plateau of Chota Nagpur. The Damodar Valley is one of the most industrialized zones of India. Three integrated steel plants like the Bokaro, Burnpur and Durgapur, moreover the Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and other factories are situated in the valley.

Damodar Valley contains a variety of mineral deposits, including very large deposits of coal and refractory materials. The largest (almost the only) reserves of coking coal in the country are found in the Jharia coalfields in the valley. The valley also generates 60% of India`s average grade coal. Coal India Limited operates in the valley in a big way. Several dams have been built in the valley, for the generation of hydroelectric power.

The valley is called "the Ruhr of India" and Damodar Valley Corporation is popularly known as DVC, which came into being on July 7, 1948 by an Act of the Constituent Assembly of India (Act No. XIV of 1948) as the first versatile river valley project of independent India. The project is designed on the basis of the Tennessee Valley Authority of the USA.

The initial focus of the DVC were flood control, irrigation, production, transmission and distribution of electricity, eco-conservation and afforestation, as well as job creation for the socio-economic well-being of the people residing in and around areas affected by DVC projects. However, over the past few decades, power production has achieved priority. Other objectives of the DVC, however, remain part of its main responsibility. The dams in the valley have a capacity to check the peak floods of 650,000 to 250,000 ft3/s. DVC has created many irrigation potential of 3640 km2.

Damodar River was earlier known as the River of Sorrows as it used to flood vast areas of Bardhaman, Hooghly, Howrah and Medinipur districts. Even today the floods sometimes distress the lower Damodar Valley but the chaos it brought about in earlier years. However, after building the dams this flood factor has become a matter of history.

The Chota Nagpur Plateau receives an average annual rainfall of around 1400 mm, almost all of it in the monsoon months between June and August. Huge volume of water flows down the Damodar and during the monsoons its tributaries used to flow ferociously in the upper courses of the valley but in the lower valley it used to spill over its banks and flood extensive areas.

The floods were almost an annual ritual in this region but in some years the harm was probably more and so many of the great floods of the Damodar are available in documentation - 1770, 1855, 1866, 1873-74, 1875-76, 1884-85, 1891-92, 1897, 1900, 1907, 1913, 1927, 1930, 1935 and 1943. In four of these flooded years (1770, 1855, 1913 and 1943) majority regions of Bardhaman town was flooded.

In 1789 a contract was signed between Maharaja Kirti Chand of Burdwan and the East India Company. In this contract the Maharaja was asked to pay an extra amount of Rs. 1,93,721 for the construction and maintenance of embankment to prevent floods. However, these ran into dispute and in 1866 and 1873, The Bengal Embankment Act were passed, transferring the powers to build and maintain embankment to the government.

The first dam was built across the Barakar River, which is a tributary of the Damodar River at Tilaiya in 1953. The second dam was built across the Konar river, another tributary of the Damodar River at Konar in 1955. Two dams across the rivers Barakar and Damodar were built at Maithon in 1957 and Panchet in 1959. Both the dams are some 8 km upstream of the convergence point of the rivers.

These four major dams are owned by DVC. Durgapur barrage was build downstream of the four dams in 1955, across the Damodar river at Durgapur in 1955, with head regulators for canals on either side for feeding an widespread system of canals and distributaries. In 1978, the Government of Bihar, which was the formation of the state of Jharkhand formerly, constructed the Tenughat dam across the Damodar river outside the control of DVC. This program proposes to construct a dam across the Barakar river at Belpahari in Jharkhand state.