Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Sept 21: Vote bank politics and faulty planning led to the devastation of posh areas of Srinagar, City Centre Lal Chowk and main Government offices including Civil Secretariat than actual floods, say experts.
Sources said that local administration was in favour of making a traditional cuts in the river Jhelum banks at Kandizal near Lasjan, Padshahi Bagh and other places to save Srinagar city. However, one of the local MLA, say residents, was guarding the river bank near Kandizal to save his constituency from flooding and another local MLA pressurized the local administration not to make any cuts of the river Jhelum bank in Padshahi Bagh area.
The administration used to divert flood water to low lying area, agriculture fields, and natural flood basins in Budgam area (some parts are now with Srinagar) to save Srinagar city. These areas include Lasjan, Nowgam, Padshahi Bagh, Mehjoor Nagar, Peer Bagh, Narkara, Bemina, Soibugh and adjacent areas.
As the water level in Jhelum was at 34 feet at Ram Munshi Bagh, 10 feet above the danger mark of 24 feet, on September 6, the river Jhelum bank breached at Kandizal despite efforts by the locals and the MLA to prevent any breach and cut. However, locals say, the breach was a smaller one and made no major impact on the water level of river Jhelum.
Another breach of Jhelum occurred in the afternoon on September 6 at Padshahi Bagh inundating Mehjoor Nagar, once agriculture fields and a natural flood basin, where over the decades residential colonies have come up. The breach at Padshahi Bagh inundated Mehjoor Nagar and adjacent areas by 3 p.m. in September 6. “This is a vote bank for local MLA and he devastated our area”, said Javed Ahmad, a local of Rajbagh.
The discharge of river Jhelum in Srinagar city was 65,000 cusecs in 1992 while thus year it was 90,000 cusecs. Farooq Ahmad of Jawahar Nagar said that Government could have cut river bank at Kandizal and Padshahi Bagh when water level crossed the danger mark in Srinagar but they waited for several day. He said that local politicians and the administration was at loggerheads, resulting in devastation of posh areas of Jawahar Nagar, Rajbagh, Gogjibagh, Karan Nagar and City Centre Lal Chowk and its adjacent areas and Civil Secretariat, Jammu and Kashmir High Court besides several Government offices.
A retired bureaucrat, Bashir Ahmad, whose house is still waterlogged but was rescued by locals and NDRF last week said that the areas of Jawahar Nagar, Rajbagh, Gogjibagh, Karan Nagar and City Centre Lal Chowk and its adjacent areas and Civil Secretariat, Jammu and Kashmir High Court have no history of flooding and these areas were destroyed due to manmade disaster.
Government used to open the gates of Dal lake during floods to divert the Jhelum waters but this time as the elections were round the corner, a particular politician, pressurized the administration against opening the gates for vote bank politics.
“When waters used to cross danger mark, Government used to open Dal lake gate to release pressure on river Jhelum but this time they didn’t. The Dal lake has capacity to take large quantity of water as it is spread over 10 square kilometers. The local politician pressurized the administration not to open the gates,” a retired Flood Control official.
“Another major contributor for flooding of Posh residential areas is construction of temporary road and bridge in flood Channel near Jawahar Nagar”, said Tariq Ahmad, a resident of Rajbagh. “It is due to this faulty planning of road through flood channel that there was breach at Kursu that led to massive destruction Jawahar Nagar and Rajbagh areas”, he added.
Another contributor for the flooding of Srinagar is a tussle between Irrigation and Flood Control Department and Wild Life Department over the construction of flood channel in Hokersar area in the outskirts of Srinagar.
The work on the flood channel was stopped by the Wild Life Department three years ago near Soibugh. “The absence of flood channel beyond Bemina upto Narbal has blocked the outflow of water causing inundation of Srinagar city”, said Mohammad Urfi, an Engineer.
Documents with the Excelsior suggest that Wildlife Department has sent proposal of the flood channel between Bemina and Narbal for forest clearance to the Central Wild Life Department in New Delhi last year and it has not been cleared yet.
Urfi said Railway Line from South to North of Kashmir valley led to the flooding of Srinagar city. “The Railway line is around 30 feet high at places from the ground level leading to blocking of flow of flood water. The flood water normally used to get spread in rice fields on the western-side of Railway line but these areas were not affected by September 2014 floods as the Railway line prevented it”, he added.
One more contributor is the blocking of natural water channel in and around Srinagar city. “Even Government offices have come up on the natural water channels from Aloochabagh to Bemina and other places”, said Urfi.
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