Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference Chief Spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq on Thursday asked the government to remove deadlock hampering the Jhelum flood mitigation plan.
“The government may claim to have spent crores of rupees on flood mitigation measures, but the position on the ground is not encouraging; it takes only a few hours of rain to trigger a flood-like situation in Kashmir, particularly Srinagar,” Tanvir said while expressing dismay over the sluggish execution of the flood project.
“Flood Control project of Jhelum, Kashmir is a very important & vital project under Prime Minister’s Development Package. This project was conceived to protect Kashmir from devastating floods like in 2014. After all approvals, a fund of Rs. 114 crores out of 1623 crores have been released by the Central Government in March 2022. A tender of Rs. 229 Crores was floated by Irrigation & Flood Control Department, Kashmir in October 2022. After 5 months, the tender finally got canceled. More than one year has passed and the tender is not being floated yet. The new tender is ready, but awaiting instructions from the higher-ups. Even in Jal Jeevan Mission, out of 14000 crores, only 750 crores have been spent till date. These deadlocks need to be ended without any further delay so as not to lose any further time for dredging and de-siltation,” he said.
“Incessant rains since Monday have triggered massive water-logging in the Srinagar areas and to our surprise sucker vehicles, dewatering pumps, and mobile pumps for dewatering are yet to come into action. The waterlogging problem arises every time there is rainfall. The administration has failed to fix the drainage system which results in waterlogging in downtown areas. Some localities are complaining that the condition of interior roads is full of potholes,” he added.
He hoped that the administration would mitigate the predicaments of the people by removing bottlenecks in the way of the execution of the flood project. He also sought the upgradation and augmentation of the drain infrastructure across Srinagar.
