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| Kashmir flooded as successive state Govts unutilised central aid | | | In fact the successive state Governments
have ignored lake conservation and dredging of river Jehlum. And the result has been devastating with normal rain. Several people have been killed and vast majority of people have become homeless as a result of inundation of river Jehlum and the lakes in the Kashmir valley. It seems that the Government has never grown wise from the worst experience of 2014 floods which had caused enormous damage to the houses in posh colonies, including Raj Bagh and Jawahar Nagar. Notwithstanding the worst experience of 2014 floods in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, in which over 300 people were killed, the successive state Governments have ignored the directions from the High Court under which the Government was asked to widen the embankments of the river Jehlum and complete the process of conservation of lakes especially the Dal Lake which has been a scene of encroachment.
With the Government and the authorities wasting money meant for the conservation of the Dal Lake and the dredging of the river Jehlum the two water bodies failed to accumulate rain water.
Learning no lesson from 2014 devastating floods, the government of Jammu and Kashmir for the last four years has not shown any interest to prepare itself for future floods. The initiative started four years back by the previous government has been left midway and with the result, the constant rains during last few days have pushed the entire Valley to a flood threat. The administration in J&K has sounded flood alert and even south and central Kashmir have already been termed as flood hit and various low lying areas in south and central Kashmir are submerged in water.
Dredging and de-silting projects have remained unimplemented with the result those connected with these projects amassed huge wealth. The same was the case with the Lake Development Authority. Though, post floods, the Government of India had approved Rs 399 crore flood management plans for Jhelum to increase carrying capacity of the river and its flood spill channel and initially the government of J&K showed some seriousness and started a hugely funded project of dredging of Jhelum and desilting of flood channels.
However, later on, the project moved at a snail's pace as the mechanical dredgers had been able to dredge only 1.4 lakh cubic metres of silt as against the overall target of 16 lakh cubic metres. And the centre too felt annoyed with the non-utilisation of funds that were released by the Government of India. In fact the long term plan to save the valley from flood damages has never been prepared. It is simply a cut and dried formula that has been adopted by the successive Governments. It is suprising that the Dal Lake development and conservation had been actually started by Sheikh Abdullah in 1977.Since then several hundred crores have been spent on the conser vation and development of Dal lake area but it has not been freed from the problem of encroachment despite the fact that alternate areas were identified years ago for the settlement of those who had encroached upon the Lake. And of late schools have come up on the lake waters, parks and gardens have appeared on the lake water with the result that it cannot accumulate rain water which is the cause of floods. |
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