SRINAGAR, June 2: State Government today informed the visiting Parliamentary Standing Committee on Water Resources that it is working on both short and long term strategy to avert future floods in Kashmir.
The Parliamentary panel is visiting Kashmir on the initiative of Member Parliament, Tariq Hameed Karra, who is also a member of the Committee.
Briefing the members of the Parliamentary panel during their extensive visit to various flood-affected areas of the Valley, the officers of the Irrigation and Flood Control Department said that various flood-protection measures have been taken in the wake of the devastating deluge of September 2014 which caused colossal damage to the life and the property in Kashmir.
The officers said that while Rs 401 crore project has been approved under flood management programme for River Jhelum (Phase-I), to take up urgent works, in the long term the Irrigation and Flood Control Department has proposed construction of an alternate Flood Spill Channel from Dogripora in district Pulwama upto the Wullar Lake costing Rs 2083 crore.
The Phase-I of flood management programme, according to I&FC officials, mainly involves works aimed at increasing the carrying capacity of River Jhelum from the existing 28000 cusecs to at least 50000 cusecs. They said the project includes dredging/deepening & widening of River Jhelum, removal of bottlenecks & encroachments, construction & strengthening of protection bund and re-sectioning of the existing flood spill channels.
The Parliamentary panel members during their visit took on-the-spot review of the flood damages at Wangipora (Sumbal), Bemina, Shariefabad, Padshahi Bagh, Kursoo, Rajbagh, Shivpora and other areas. They also visited the spots of breaches, cuts and damages along River Jhelum bund at various places.
The panel members were informed that during last year’s floods, River Jhelum breached at several places in Srinagar submerging large parts of the city and causing massive damage to properties, crops and livestock besides claiming several human lives.
Headed by Hukum Singh, MP, the other members of the Committee include, Radheshyam Biswas, Devusinh Chauhan, Sukhbir Singh Jaunapuria, Vinod Kumar, Murali Mohan Maganti, Sidhant Mohapatra, Abhijit Mukherjee, Rodmal Nagar, Subhash Patel, Sanjay Kaka Patil, Vijaysinh Shankarrao Mohite Patil, Aparupa Poddar, Vishnu Dayal Ram, S P Y Reddy, Ram Prasad Sarmah, Sathyabama V, Lallu Singh, L K Vaghela, Dimple Yadav, Balwinder Singh Bhunder, Anil Madhav Dave, Naznin Faruque, Mir Mohammad Fayaz, Sanjiv Kumar, Prof Mrinal Miri, V Hanumantha Rao, Amar Shankar Sable, A V Swamy and Lal Sinh Vadodia.
Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Dr Asghar Samoon, Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Dr Farooq Lone, Chief Engineers I&FC Department, Javaid Jaffer, Officers of the Central Water Commission and various State Government Departments accompanied the Parliamentary Panel during its visit.
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