Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Sept 25: A high level meeting of the Administrative Secretaries is being held tomorrow morning in Srinagar to discuss the assessed losses caused by devastating floods in the State and prepare a memorandum that will be submitted to the Centre for seeking aid.
The meeting that will be chaired by the Chief Secretary, Mohammad Iqbal Khanday, and will discuss the figures of the estimated losses, prepared by various departments, and will prepare a memorandum that will be submitted to the Centre for granting aid to the State for the losses it suffered.
Sources said that almost all the departments have finalized the estimated losses but 4-5 departments, including Tourism and Roads and Buildings Department, are yet to convey it and will be conveying the same by 11 a.m. tomorrow. The estimated losses including those suffered by the businessmen are pegged at over Rs 50,000 crore.
The Government had directed all the administrative departments to submit their loss assessment reports by today.
The Government is seeking enhancing the SDRF norms under which Rs 70, 000 are provided as relief for the fully damaged houses and Rs 15,000 for partially damaged. The State Government is putting a demand before the Centre that the relief for the fully damaged houses should be enhanced to Rs 5 lakh and for partially damaged houses to Rs 2 lakh.
The losses to agriculture sector are over Rs 4,000 crore and horticulture sector has suffered losses to the tune of around Rs 2,000 crore. The damage to public infrastructure like roads, Government buildings, bridges and hospitals is estimated at Rs 7,000 crore.
The healthcare sector has also suffered heavy damages due to the floods as several Government run hospitals lost critical care and diagnostic equipments. The State Government has put the initial estimate of losses to the equipment of four major Srinagar hospitals at Rs 150 crore.
An official said that the loss suffered by tourism sector has been pegged at Rs 1500 crore and Tourism Department has suffered damages to its infrastructure to the tune of Rs 150 crore. “Police Department has pegged their losses to their infrastructure at Rs 300 crore”, he added.
“The private sector losses are much higher as for the first time the commercial hub of Lal Chowk and its surrounding areas have been hit by the floods. These losses are huge and we are not estimating these presently”, he added.
The official said that over 20,000 shops and other commercial outlets have been affected due to floods with Srinagar city suffering maximum damages.
The official said while nearly 2. 34 lakh houses, excluding Srinagar district, have suffered damages and over 20,000 residential houses have been destroyed by the floods. Srinagar city is worst affected and where the number of damaged and destroyed houses is much higher.
In the meantime, a tourism official said that they are submitting a proposal to the Centre for seeking some concessions for the industry which has suffered heavy losses due to the floods. “We are also putting up a demand for exemption of Income Tax to the hotels and other tourism related establishments for the current financial year, the official said.
The official said hundreds of hotels have suffered losses due to water-logging especially in Rajbagh and Dalgate areas. They have suffered losses to their furniture, linen and other equipment.
The official said the department will seek interest-free one-year loans for those hotels, houseboats and guest houses which do not need much money for repairs and renovations. We will also put a demand soft loan for the industry.
The official said the department will also approach the RBI for relaxing the lending guidelines for loans to the tourism sector in the flood-hit State.
The Centre has announced authorisation of Rs 100 crore reconstruction of tourism sector but the official said the funds granted will take some time to come.
The department has released Rs 2 crores for renovation of these hotels as these are used as accommodation for government employees working in the Civil Secretariat. These include Rs 90 lakh to the Jammu and Kashmir Tourism Development Corporation and Rs 1.10 lakh to SKICC that has suffered major damage due to flooding in Dal lake.
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