Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Mar 30: While the flood water has surrounded several villages in Pulwama district for the last two days, residents blame Irrigation and Flood Control Department of its ‘inaction’.
According to locals, the IFC has failed to remove encroachments on Laar stream which have come up on the stream over the years and led to floods year after year.
“Hundreds of illegal structures have come up on both the embankments of the stream. But the officials of the IFC Department have failed to remove them,” Feroz Ahmad of Koil told Excelsior.
He said that the embankments have been encroached by residents whose houses lie nearby and also by farmers who have planted trees alongside the embankments.
“This all has led to narrowing its width. The encroachments have been going on but the whole administration has paid no heed to it”, he added.
Water from the stream has breached into several villages since Saturday and forced villagers from Gulbagh, Mohanviji, Rishipora, Hanjipora and Ratnipora to abandon their homes.
Laar stream has Rambi Ara as its source and it flows through scores of villages. The stream provides drinking water to a huge population and also irrigates thousands of acres of agriculture land.
The department is also accused of failing to fill the breaches in the stream’s embankments which have occurred due to last year’s floods.
Dozens of villages, including Tirch, Narwa, Sanzwatru Koil, Talengam, Ratnipora, Gulbagh, Mohanviji, Rishipora, Hanjipora, and others are always in the grip of looming floods during moderate or heavy downpour.
Worried residents in Ratnipora village said that the Flood Control Department has been constructing retaining walls along the stream banks from the last one year to prevent their breach.
But the department, the residents said, has failed to remove the earth sediment in the stream after they dredge the embankments.
“The construction of the walls along the banks is appreciable. But we are worried over the earth which gets accumulated into the fresh water stream. The earth has piled up into big mounds in the stream at dozens of places after these walls have been built,” Mushtaq Ahmad, one of the villagers, said.
Senior Engineer IFC, A M Mir, told Excelsior that encroachments have taken place on the stream banks.
“We have repeatedly asked people to remove the encroachments and warned them about floods due to these encroachments. In addition, we are also carrying anti-encroachments drive in the district,” he said.
He also claimed that the department has filled the breaches that occurred due to last year’s floods.
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