Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Oct 15: President, J&K Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) and former Union Minister, Prof Saif-ud-Din Soz, accompanied by Minister for PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control, Sham Lal Sharma, MLCs, Ghulam Nabi Monga and Mohammad Muzaffar Parrey today conducted an extensive tour of district Baramulla to take stock of the post-flood situation and on-going developmental works.
These leaders also interacted with the district administration and local people at Baramulla and obtained the necessary feed-back about the recent floods and restoration works in the affected areas.
Prof. Soz urged upon the Minister and district administration to speed up the restoration works to provide immediate succor to the affected people. He called upon the Deputy Commissioner and engineers to adopt proactive approach in restoring the essential services which were affected during the recent floods.
He also emphasized the need for taking affective measures to deal with the flood situations in the State to ensure safety of life and property of people.
He also urged the Minister to ensure speedy completion of on-going developmental projects in the district.
Issuing strict instructions to the district administration for speedy restoration of damaged infrastructure, Sham Lal Sharma directed the Deputy Commissioner to personally monitor the post-flood situation to provide immediate relief and rehabilitation to the affected people. He stressed the need for completion of all restoration works well before the on-set of winter season. He also directed the Chief Engineers, PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control to press adequate men and material into service to restore the damaged infrastructure of PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control sectors.
While inspecting the pace of under construction Lift Irrigation Scheme at Seeri, the Minister directed the concerned engineers to accelerate the pace of work to complete the project in a time bound manner. He said the funds for the project already stand released.
The Minister also selected the site for construction of filtration plant and service reservoir for water supply scheme at village Khanpur. He directed the Chief Engineer to immediately take up the construction works for the filtration plant to provide safe drinking water facilities to the people of this pocket of the district.
While inspecting head work at Tarzoo Weir/Gate of Irrigation Canal, Mr. Sham directed for undertaking immediate renovation work of the head work and canal to improve its efficiency. He directed the concerned engineer to formulate a comprehensive project for the restoration of canal so that it serves its actual purpose.
Interacting with the flood affected people; the Minister maintained that Government will devise a well-knit long term strategy to deal with the flood situation in future to save the State from the flood havocs. He said the Government has learnt a big lesson from the recent floods and it would take all necessary measures to deal with such calamities in future, he added.
In the meeting of officers, it was informed that the PHE sector has suffered loss to its infrastructure to the tune of Rs. 17.04 crore for permanent restoration. Most of the schemes have been temporarily restored to provide immediate relief to the people.
Similarly, the Irrigation & Flood Control sector has suffered loss to its infrastructure to the tune of Rs. 47.73 crore for their permanent restoration in the Baramulla district, the meeting was informed.
Deputy Commissioner, Baramulla, Dr. Farooq Ahmad Lone, Chief Engineer, PHE, A.M. Lanker, Chief Engineer, Irrigation & Flood Control, Mir Javed Jaffer and other concerned officers accompanied.
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