No reports of flood related diseases, 29 missing in Kashmir
Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Sept 29: Chief Secretary, Mohammad Iqbal Khandey, today said that State has suffered losses to the tune of Rs 1 lakh crore due to floods and hoped liberal Central Government assistance for providing succor to the affected people. He said that Government is working on flood management to tackle the future floods in Kashmir and revealed that there were no reports of any flood related disease outbreak in the State.
The Chief Secretary said: “We have estimated that there was loss to the tune of Rs 35,000 crore to the Government infrastructure, crops and structures including residential houses. The loss to the shops, business establishments and tourism sector is estimated at Rs 65, 000 crore. The total losses is floods including the private businesses is in excess of Rs one lakh crore.”
Khandey said the State Government is preparing a detailed memorandum of losses due to floods that will be submitted to the Centre this week. “We are preparing the memo. It will be approved by the Cabinet and will be sent to the Centre by the weekend,” he said.
The Chief Secretary said that he is optimistic that Central Government will go out of way in helping the State out of this crisis. “We are extremely optimistic that the Government of India will go out of its way to provide succour to the affected people,” he added.
Khandey said that 12.5 lakh families have been affected by floods in the State and Government is providing free ration for six months to these affected people.
Chief Secretary said Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has written a letter to the Union Government, requesting a special package for the rehabilitation of the flood affected people. “We have requested for Rs 5 lakh compensation for fully damaged pucca house and Rs two lakh for partially damaged pucca houses,” he said.
Khandey said more than 3.5 lakh structures, mostly residential houses, were damaged in the floods. “83, 044 pucca houses have been fully damaged while 96,089 such houses have suffered partial damage. Similarly, 21,162 kacha houses have been fully damaged while 54,264 such houses have been partially damaged. 99, 305 other structures including cow sheds, granaries were destroyed in the floods. The total number of structures in floods is 3, 53, 864,” he added.
Chief Secretary said over 43, 000 animals including 10, 050 milch animals and 33, 000 sheep and goats perished in the floods.
Khandey said that crop losses have been estimated at Rs 5611 crore including Rs 4043 crore to agriculture and Rs 1568 crore losses to the horticulture sector spread over 6.516 lakh hectares of land.
Chief Secretary said that public utility infrastructure including roads, water works, irrigation, power suffered losses to the tune of Rs 3000 crore.
Khandey said the Tourism infrastructure and Government residential colonies have suffered losses to the tune of Rs 5,000 crore.
“These are all preliminary estimates. A detailed assessment is presently underway and is being conducted by several agencies including Revenue, Animal Husbandry,” Chief Secretary said.
Khandey said that 550 bridges and culverts suffered major damages in the floods affecting connectivity initially. “Most of these has been temporarily restored except few”, he added.
Chief Secretary said 6,000 kilometres of road length has been damaged while 3,000 water supply schemes were affected. In the power sector, he said 3000 sub stations were damaged while in the Flood Control, 6000 ongoing works were affected.
“We have been able to temporarily restore majority of the water supply schemes while electricity supply has been restored in over 90 per cent areas of the State including Srinagar,” Khandey added.
Chief Secretary said that transmission towers were washed away and 11000 kilometer of conductors were either damaged or snapped.
Director General of Police K Rajendra Kumar, who was among several officers accompanying Khandey at the media briefing, said while the department had suffered losses to buildings and equipment worth Rs 350 crores.
Kumar said the Police Department used all its resources to help the civil administration in rescue, relief and sanitation operations in the aftermath of the floods.
In the Health sector, Secretary Health Department Gazanfar Hussain said the department had incurred loss of Rs 268 crores but the department is going to procure some equipment at a cost of Rs 8.96 crore to enable basic functioning of the affected hospitals.
Secretary CAPD Baseer Khan said the department has distributed 8300 tonnes of free ration following the floods while ration will be provided free of cost to 12.5 lakh affected families for six months.
“Over 2600 tonnes of ration and 2000 tonnes of sugar were damaged at Gulab Bagh store due to floods while two trucks are reported missing in transit as they did not reach the destinations,” Khan said.
Chief Secretary said that floods in Kashmir were no ordinary event and such floods levels were never recorded in the history. He said that these were caused by multiple cloud bursts in the tributaries of river Jhelum.
Khandey said that the flood spill channels had no enough space and river was flowing through habitation causing massive devastation. He said that 5, 642 villages including 2489 in Kashmir valley were affected by floods and in 800 villages were inundated for more than two weeks.
Chief Secretary said that 281 people died in floods including 196 in Jammu and 85 in Kashmir valley. He said that 29 people are missing in Kashmir in floods.
Khandey said that State Government had submitted a project of Rs 2200 crore for construction of flood spill channel that can hand flood discharge and hoped that it will be sanctioned. “I am sure the project costing Rs 2200 crore will be sanctioned by Government of India,” he said.
Chief Secretary said the project for constructing a second flood spill channel from Sangam in Anantnag district in South Kashmir to Wullar lake in North Kashmir was submitted to the Centre in 2007 and Rs 97 crore were released in 2010 for dredging. “There were some arguments back and forth but the project has not yet been sanctioned,” he said.
Khandey said the Kashmir floods would be a classic case of Urban flooding to be studied for preventing urban floods across the world.
Secretary Flood Control and Irrigation Department, Pawan Kotwal, said the funds released by the Centre were used for dredging the existing flood channel, which enhanced its capacity by 9,000 cusec.
“We have also carried out dredging in River Jhelum downstream at Baramulla increasing the capacity of the river there to 30,000 cusec. This saved the Baramulla town and surrounding areas from getting inundated,” Kotwal added.
The official said the proposed second flood spill channel, Sangam to Wullar lake, has the capacity to hold the 1,20,000 cusec water that River Jhelum carried on September 6 which inundated large parts of Kashmir.
Kotwal said that it was major flood since 1902 and it has broken all the past records. “There was 1.2 lakh cusec water and in 1902 the water 1.04 lakh cusec. In 1902 water receded after two years and Srinagar city remained inundated for 7 months”, he added.
The Secretary FC &I said: “It is essential for the whole Valley to have a flood management project.” He admitted that encroachments on the banks of the river and illegal constructions were also responsible for the floods in the Valley.
Kotwal also said that Railway track and National Highway also prevented flood water from spreading in fields leading to pressure on river Jhelum.
The official said the department has sought help from National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) experts to study the cause of sudden rise for water level in river Jhelum. “We have requested for satellite image data for studying the reasons for the rise of water level,” he added.
Kotwal said the department will also study the effects of the Railway track and construction of National Highway through the Valley on the flow of flood water. He said suggestions will be taken from NDMA and flood management plan will be formulated accordingly.
The official said that due to rains and rising water levels there was breach at Kandizal on September 4 but it had not major impact on reducing the water levels of river Jhelum due to restrictions by Railway track and National Highway.
Kotwal said that on September 6, there was improvement in weather and water level at Ram Munshibagh was 22 feet. He said that there was sudden outburst of Lidder, Kounsarnag, Rambi Ara and other tributaries of river Jhelum due to massive cloud bursts. He said that at Sharifabad water return back and entered into the city.
The official said that Jhelum has water carrying capacity of 35,000 cusecs and flood channel has between 12000 to 15000 and both have total water carrying capacity of 50, 000 cusecs and rest of the water entered Srinagar city and adjacent areas. He said that water level at went upto 37 feet and at Ram Munshi Bagh it was at 40 feet.
Kotwal said that major challenge was to de-water the inundated areas of Srinagar. “It was possible only after water started receding from Jhelum. Cuts were made in the banks of river after September 12”, he added.
The official said that out of 76 de-watering Stations across the city 75 have been restored. He said that 200 pumps were used for de-watering Srinagar city.
Chief Secretary said there were no reports of outbreak of any flood-related diseases in any part of the State. “There is not report of any disease outbreak from anywhere in the State so far,” he said.
Khandey said the Health Department has so far immunized seven lakh children for various flood-related diseases in the affected areas of the Kashmir valley.
Chief Secretary said the cleaning and sanitation operations were going on in full swing in all flood affected areas. “The Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC), which in normal course would remove 300 tonnes of waste material from the city, is now clearing around 1500 tonnes of garbage every day,” he said.
Khandey said the SMC has removed more than 1500 animal carcasses from the flood-hit areas of Kashmir over the past two weeks. “All the carcasses were disposed off and operations are on to remove the remaining carcasses,” he added.
“We are recovering 15 to 20 carcasses per day. There is no human contact involved in the process as we are using robotic JCBs for this purpose,” he added.
SMC Commissioner G N Qasba said the corporation has removed more than 18000 tonnes of garbage from various parts of the city. “More than 400 truck-loads of waste material are being disposed off at the dumping site in Achan in Eidgah area,” he added.
Qasba said all the employees of the corporation have been immunized to protect them from catching any flood-related disease.
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