Avtar Bhat
LEH (LADAKH), July 6: Even after about three years of cloudburst which spelt a doom for Leh and its adjoining areas, the Government has failed to rebuild the infrastructure that was damaged in this natural calamity.
According to sources, no headway has been made during last three years in rebuilding the damaged infrastructure in Leh and Nobra Valley with the result the people have been put to many hardships.
The cloudburst followed by flash floods created havoc in Leh and other parts including Nobra Valley, Chuglamsar etc. It not only claimed 257 human lives including 25 foreign tourists but also damaged 1447 residential houses. Out of them 664 houses were damaged fully while 783 were damaged partially.
The Government of India announced Rs 125 crore under Prime Minister’s Relief Fund for payment of ex-gratia to the next kin of dead and the damaged houses. But the package for the rebuilding of damaged structures especially the irrigation canals and their head works has not seen the light of the day, sources said.
Sources said the head works of various irrigation canals supplying water to irrigation land in low lying areas in Leh, Nobra Valley and Chuglamsar have not been constructed till date due to non release of funds by Centre. Not only the head works of the canals but many canals were also washed away by flash floods but they too have not been re-constructed so far putting people to lot of hardships in irrigating their agriculture land.
Sources said the money given under PM’s Relief Fund was paid as ex-gratia to the next survivors of dead, the injured and those whose houses were fully or partially damaged.
In addition to it some portion of this amount was spent for the construction of hospital in Leh and purchase of machinery etc, sources said, adding the rest amount was spent on construction of bridges and other buildings damaged in the flash floods.
Sources said though work was started on some nallahs but major nallahs which were main source of irrigating the agriculture land including Leh nallah, Stakno nallah, Domkhar nallah and Indus nallah have not been touched. Besides, there are other small nallahs on which work has not been started, sources added.
These nallahs were main source of irrigating the agriculture land in Leh.
Sources said the farmers in Ladakh are worried as they are not in a position to cultivate their agriculture land and the Government has failed to fulfill the promise in this regard.
When contacted District Development Commissioner Leh, Simranjit Singh said that work on nallahs is going on war footing. The main reason for delay in the construction is that Ladakh has a limited working season of three to four months, he added.
The DDC said that he was himself monitoring the execution work on daily basis and Rs 18 crore were spent on construction of various nallahs so far and for completion of all pending irrigation canals etc Rs 100 crore are needed. The administration is hopeful that it will get the funds soon.
He said the work is also going on the construction of bridges and recently a bridge constructed by BRO was inaugurated by Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah in Leh.
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