Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Oct 21: Minister for Public Health Engineering and Irrigation and Flood Control, Sham Lal Sharma, today snubbed his party colleague and Minister for Health and Medical Education, Taj Mohi -ud-Din, for punching holes in dealing with the last month’s deluge.
Sharma lashed out at Taj, saying he “should mind his own business and not interfere in my ministry.”
The Minister told Excelsior: “It is not the domain of Taj Sahib to interfere in IFC. I am answerable to my Chief Minister, not him. He is not a super minister. I want to tell him that he should mind his own business. I want to make it very clear to him not to do politics for the sake of politics.”
Sharma while reacting to Taj’s statement saying IFC did not follow the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) even after the water bodies were flowing alarmingly at high level, said: “I have nothing personal against him. But I think it is not right on his part to interfere in IFC. Moreover, he is not a hydraulic expert.”
“What has he done when he was the Minister of the IFC. He should have done something in those four years,” the Minister said.
Sharma said the fact is that the State was not prepared to deal with such a high volume of water in the water bodies.
“The carrying capacity of the river Jhelum is 35, 000 cusecs and water was flowing at 112, 000 cusecs during the floods as per central water commission. But I said it was flowing at 120 thousand cusecs. We also have to see the volume and the quantity of the flood,” said Minister.
Sharma said that he would have blamed himself had there been any failure on his part during and before the floods. “I would have taken responsibility if there was any leniency on our part. But everyone, including Army, is now giving opinion to become flood experts”, he said.
The Minister admitted that encroachments on the state’s water bodies have flourished in the last many decades and the Governments were not bothered over their removal.
“I feel that all the people in the Government were least interested toward removing encroachment along water bodies, particularly the river Jhelum. But the recent floods have made us to think over the issue,” he added.
Sharma said constructions have taken place on the banks of the river Jhelum and other water bodies over the years. “Now, after floods I feel it is alarming. Had Dood Ganga not been encroached it would have carried a lot of flood water and saved most parts of the city.”
“The carrying capacity in rivers has decreased due to encroachments and I feel civil society should support the Government in removing encroachments as this kind of floods may hit the state again, the Minister said.
Sharma admitted that there is always political pressure when the issue of removing encroachments come to fore. “I am not denying that there is not political pressure in removing the encroachments. It will be unfair to deny it. There is always political pressure. But if we have to move ahead then we have to go for reforms, and as per minimum requirement we have to remove the encroachments despite political pressure”, he added.
The Minister said the recent floods have compelled the Government to go for reforms in IFC. “Now, we have to go for reforms which include increasing the capacity of the river Jhelum to make it carry 125 thousand cusecs of water”, he added.
Sharma said the Government will take measures to prevent such floods in future. “We have to carry out dredging of the rivers for which the proposal has been submitted to the Central Government. But GOI raised some queries. As the state is prone to natural calamities the dredging process has to be started at the earliest.”
The Minister said the Government will raise two battalions of State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) to save people during natural calamities and said he is sure the process is going on for this.
Sharma said the Government has to be strict now in permitting constructions in the city and the State. “We will give our suggestions to revive the Master Plan and I have told the Government that before any new construction is done, people have to get NOC from IFC. We have to be strict now,” he said.
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