*Death toll mounts to 280
Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Sept 19: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah today said the State has suffered losses worth thousands of crores of rupees due to floods and will approach the Centre for aid only after the final assessment is completed. He said there are no signs of epidemic but Government is short of 12 lakh vaccines and 40 lakh chlorine tablets which they are purchasing from open market.
Speaking to EXCELSIOR at Hari Niwas where from Government is runs these days, Omar said that State has suffered huge losses due to flooding. “In terms of property damage, it is early to give a final figure but obviously it will run in thousands of crores because you have property damage in terms of houses, you have damage to shops, business establishments, then the products within the shops. There is massive damage to the physical infrastructure of the Government like roads, bridges, water supply schemes, etc. There is damage to agriculture crops; our paddy, maize crop, horticulture crops like pear has been destroyed as it could not reach the market. The lands have been washed away. All these put together losses will run into many thousands of crores”, he said.
Chief Minister said that Government has almost completed assessment of the damage caused in districts but assessment in Srinagar is still going on as some areas are still inundated. “I need to have firm numbers before I tell the people what the extent of actual damage is. There is an assessment going on to determine the extent of damage and because we need to have that number available to us to put in the memo that we are going to submit to Government of India. All the districts have been told to compile the details at earliest. I think barring Srinagar, we are still grappling with floods here, most of the districts are completing their work”, he said.
Omar said that till yesterday the number of full damaged houses in Anantnag was 1500 but today it stands at 8000. “I can’t even begin to hazard a guess because the numbers are very fluid and we need to firm up the numbers. Small example, upto two day ago, we had the input that 1500 houses have been fully damaged in Anantnag district. Today, I was told that fully damaged houses in the district are 8000”, he said.
Chief Minister said that the death toll in the floods has gone upto 277. “In Kashmir province the death toll as a result of floods as of now is 74. In Jammu 159 bodies have been recovered and 44 members of marriage party who were washed away by floods in Rajouri are still untraceable”, he said. A Police spokesman this evening put the death toll in Srinagar at 77, taking total death toll in the State to 280.
Omar said that Centre has been helpful with the assistance but “the supplies are not as quickly available as we were expecting” as there supply channels were also inundated. “The Centre has been helpful and in some respects their own channels have been inundated by the floods in the scale of what is required. Therefore supplies are not as quickly available to us as we would have liked”, he said.
Chief Minister said that they are 12 lakh short of measles vaccine and have received only one lakh vaccines from Centre so far. “…we have to vaccinate the children so that we may not have measles epidemic. Children in the range of 0-15 have to be vaccinated and for that 13 lakh children are to be vaccinated and we have only received one lakh vaccines from Centre”, he said.
Omar said that since there is deficiency of 12 lakh vaccines, Government has decided to procure it from open market. “I have now told my department not to wait for this for Government of India. Money has been sent to the Chief Minister Relief Fund that we have set up for floods. I am giving money from that fund to procure vaccines from the market to vaccinate the children”, he added.
Chief Minister said that Centre has promised them to provide 50 lakh chlorine tablets but so far only 10 lakh have been made available. “I have money with which I am going to purchase vaccines and chlorine tablets. We were told that 50 lakh chlorine tablets will be coming and as of now only 10 lakh have been received. We will try whatever is to be procured to procure it from open market”, he added.
Omar said that money has been put at the disposal of the hospital for purchase of drugs. “The life saving drugs are coming and rest I have put the money at the disposal of Superintendent of Hospitals. Rs 5 lakh for district hospitals, Rs 10 lakh for city hospitals and 15 lakh for SKIMS hospital so that they can make purchases themselves so that there should not be short of anything and regular supply what we can do we will maintain”, he added.
Chief Minister said there are no signs of epidemic in the State. “Fortunately the patients who are coming to the medical camps of the Army, CRPF, NDRF and Government, there is no trend of epidemic. It is very regular treatments that they are coming for which leads us to believe that thus far there are no signs of epidemic.”
Omar said that four major hospitals of Srinagar have lost equipment worth Rs 150 crore. “In SMHS, Lal Ded, GB Pant and Bone and Joints Hospitals, all our diagnostic and laboratory equipment that has been in mostly in the ground floor and even at first floor has been damaged. A conservative estimate of the Health Department is that hospital equipment worth Rs 150 crore has been destroyed”, he said.
Chief Minister said that they will take up the matter of loss of hospital equipment with the Centre when the file the memo. “Obviously this can’t be replaced overnight. But in our memorandum which we are going to submit to the Government of India this is going to be part of it so that we can immediately procure new equipment and make these hospital fully functional. Otherwise we are going to do OPD and surgeries only and major diagnostics we will not be able to do, it will be only available in SKIMS and wherever else”, he added.
Omar said that State has waived off taxes on relief and medical equipment and will approach Centre for waiver of customs duty on hospital equipments. “As far as State taxes are concerned we will waive off all state taxes for medical equipment and hospital supplies if they gives us. We have waived taxes, any way from the first day of crisis. Any relief material which has come, taxes have been waived off. Even for cell phone equipment, we have waived off taxes so that mobile services could be restored. We have waived all taxation. I will talk to government of India and if there are any concrete proposals for medical equipment people want to give, I will ask Government of India to waive off customs duty as long as it is sent as aid and assistance and not been sold”, he said.
Omar said that Chief Minister Flood Relief Fund has received Rs 55 crore so far till yesterday. “As of yesterday it was about Rs 55 crore were deposited in the CM Relief fund, most of it from 7 or 8 States. Largest individual contribution, I am grateful to him, has been from Akhilesh Yadav from UP. Other States have given Rs 5 crore”, he added.
Chief Minister said that the government has succeeded in speedy disposal of animal carcasses from Srinagar city. “One of the major things we have achieved is disposal of animal carcasses. We have disposed off 300 animal carcasses so far in three nights. If you calculate it, one truck carries only 2 carcasses at a time that is about 150 truck ferries, largely from Army farm in Bemina. Even animals scattered around the city we have removed them. Now whatever stray cases are brought to our attention, we will send our teams to remove them”, he added.
Omar said that now the focus of the Government is to remove regular garbage from Srinagar. “People had this great fear that these dead animals could cause diseases that has been very swiftly tackled by the SMC. Now I have told them to use this men power for lifting the regular garbage that was second priority and first priority was animals”, he added.
Chief Minister said that the Civil Secretariat could not be opened due to flooding and Government will make an effort to open it on Monday. “We were not able to open Civil Secretariat. Some people were able to get in. There is still two feet of water in ground floor corridor. It would be unfair to pull up our all resources and drain out water from the Civil Secretariat when people are still stuck in their homes. We will work from here (Hari Niwas) till water recedes from Civil Secretariat. We will make another attempt on Monday and let us see”, he said.
Omar said that water has receded from High Court and Assembly and they have suffered major damages. “High Court water level has largely receded and Assembly also. There is lot of damage and waters have gone and it is now Secretariat. Let us see in couple of days. People rolled up their trousers and moved in and two Ministers managed to get into their offices and for regular work it will take few days till then we are working from here as the main Secretariat and different departments have opened up their offices at various places”, he added.
Chief Minister said that Government has distributed 1000 tonnes of relief material among flood victims. “Most of the relief material that has come has been distributed and there is some stock that is at airport and it has been earmarked for some NGOs. In terms of quantum of tonnage it is 1000 tonnes which we have distributed so far”, he said.
Omar said that it had been tough time particularly for those directly affected by floods and appealed people not to take advantage of the crisis. “We had tough time, all of us had tough time, particularly those who have been directly affected, it has been worst for them. In this hour of crisis we are doing the best we can. My only request, earnest appeal to people is not to take advantage of this crisis. We have instances where people instead of taking one share have taken 2-3 shares. They are depriving others. I have instances where houses have been robbed. People have gone there for rescue and emptied the houses there”, he said.
Chief Minister urged people to help others. “So this is an hour of crisis and we need to come together to help people and not to help ourselves”, he added.
Omar said: “We are still some way away from normalcy. It depends on how you categorise normalcy. Clearly South Kashmir is limping back much faster but that is also because of the natural flow of the water. Pampore is still largely inundated but now through artificial cuts in the bund, the water is flowing back into the river.”
Chief Minister hoped that things will normalize in next 48 hours. “So we are hopeful that things will sort of begin to move towards normality within next 24 to 48 hours”, he added.
Omar said Srinagar is now of three types. “One, there is the Srinagar which was unaffected by the floods, where life has remained largely normal all through. Then there is Srinagar where the waters rose but have receded now. Some people are trying to restore their lives in terms of cleaning their houses, cleaning their business and getting their vehicles started and then there is the Srinagar that is still inundated. That is towards Bemina, Qamarwari in that belt and Rajbagh, Jawahar Nagar, Shivepora and Indira Nagar. We are tackling these three areas from different points of view”, he added.
Omar said cuts have been made to facilitate the flow of water. “That has been perhaps the most successful way of draining out the water. Large numbers of cuts have been made from Pampore to Chattabal and beyond to get the water to flow out”, he said.
“Most of the organized cuts made by the Government have worked well. In some cases, people have taken the matters into their own hands, while that might have had some limited effect on the flow of water but these have damaged some water supply schemes”, he said.
Omar said pumping is also going on though pumps will never be an ideal solution. “We have pressed these into service. Government of India has sent pumps, we have got our own supplies, we had pumps moved in from Jammu, we have taken pumps from big projects like Kishanganga”, he said.
Chief Minister said that these inundated areas still require to be supplied with food and medicines and that is being done.
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