Chief Minister’s maiden address to the Srinagar District Development Board meeting reflects her new thinking about the problems and prospects of summer as well as winter capital cities of Srinagar and Jammu. Though in general terms both cities have common problems like large shift of rural population to the two cites, congestion of traffic, inadequacy of civic facilities like in sewerage and drainage and the need of space for widening the city roads to remove bottlenecks, yet Srinagar city has had the additional misfortune of facing the consequences of the devastating floods of 2014.
The CM said that keeping all these and other problems in mind, she had come to the conclusion that the twin cities need to be delinked from the existing practice of District Development mechanism and considered for Separate Development Plans. Srinagar and Jammu cities have expanded so much that DDB is no more capable of coping with the task lying ahead. Separating the two cities from DDB mechanism and creating Separate Development Plans is of utmost urgency. We think this a matter of priority, and as she said, actually it was her late father Mufti Sayeed who had a dream of giving new life and shape to the old city of Srinagar and creating such infrastructure as would assure space for sustained development. In pursuance of this concept, it was found that adequate funds needed to be raised.
The fact is that Srinagar city, like Jammu, has expanded and become highly congested in the process. Movement of people from rural to urban areas is a national level phenomenon and any Indian citizen is free to settle anywhere in the country wherever he likes except in specific circumstances. Moreover, easier availability of job opportunities in the capital cities is a big attraction for urbanization. Both the capital cities have not been able to keep pace with the raising of civic amenities and facilities with the steep rise in their population. While we live in modern times, we are obsessed with modern amenities. People cannot do away with such amenities as have become part and parcel of modern life. Entire planning of cities, civic facilities and public convenience need to be understood and addressed from a completely different angle. Chief Minister’s concept of utilizing funds for carefully planned projects is the essence of new planning or what will be called Separate Development Planning. Most prominent areas of separate development would be city traffic, widening of roads, recreational parks and parking lots, vacating encroachments, resettlement of hawkers and vendors to a specific locality so that road congestion is cleared, supply of adequate quantity of drinking water to all areas and ensuring uninterrupted supply of power. One way of giving a new look to the old and downtown areas is to identify these as heritage areas like the downtown areas in old part of the city of Srinagar called Shahr-e-khas. Among the vital tasks before Srinagar district development agency is that of drudging river Jhelum from Anantnag to Baramulla and clear de-silting which obstructs free flow of water, and raising embankments of the river for the portion of its passage within the municipal and adjoining areas of the city of Srinagar. The new concept must take into account the vast devastation caused by the flood of 2014 to the private and public property. The issue of encroachment of the riverbed, or other areas in and around the city has received attention of the Board and the Chief Minister, has directed the concerned authorities to ensure that encroachments are cleared. Unfortunately, encroachment of Government land and raising of unauthorized structures has been a big embarrassment for the administration because of unwanted interference by political activists.
In final analysis, we find that the idea of separating the twin capital from the jurisdiction of District Development Board and creating Separate Development Plan will go a long way in expediting many prioritized developmental schemes for these two cities.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel