Another spell of rain triggers panic, inundates Kashmir again

Azhar Qadri

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, April 27

With the status of flood-mitigation network remaining unchanged since the devastating floods ravaged the region last year, another spell of rain in Kashmir today created panic among flood-weary residents.

Fresh spell of rain, which began across the Kashmir valley on Sunday evening and continued incessantly overnight and during the day on Monday, has inundated several key roads, which has become a norm over the past few months.

In some parts of north Kashmir, where several streams gush through villages, heavy downpour in the past few hours has increased the water level.

The state Meteorological Department in its forecast bulletin said there would be decrease in precipitation from Tuesday, while another spell of rain and thundershowers was likely from Thursday evening.

However, the downpour has not created an alarming situation so far and the region’s main river, Jhelum, is still flowing several feet below the danger mark.

However, the state government’s failure to put in place a fresh flood mitigation system after last year’s devastating deluge has continued to create panic among residents, who are still trying to rebuild their lives.

During the first four months of this year, the Jhelum river crossed the alarm level three times compared to the usual once or twice in a year phenomenon, an official of the Irrigation and Flood Control (IFC) Department said.

Heavy rain, which lashed the region several times in the past few months, had also triggered landslides.

The IFC Department had sent Rs 400-crore proposal to the Union Government, which had sought funding for several mitigation measures, including dredging of the river and installation of early forewarning system. The proposal had not been approved so far, the officials said.

The department, which is facing a severe fund crunch, has only been able to make temporary rebuilding of river embankments that were damaged by the last year’s deluge.

In the aftermath of the deluge, when the Jhelum’s water volume reached a mammoth 1.2 lakh cusecs, experts had suggested several measures to mitigate the flood threat in future. The measures include installation of an early warning system, massive dredging of the Jehlum river downstream Srinagar city and restoring the capacity of the flood-spill channel from the present 10,000 cusecs to its earlier 17,500 cusecs.

The IFC Department had also suggested construction of an additional flood spill channel from Dogripora in south Kashmir to the Wular Lake in north Kashmir, covering a distance of 80 km. The channel will approximately cost Rs 18,000 crore out of which Rs 13,500 crore will have to be spent on land acquisition and compensation.

The additional flood spill channel, on which no progress has been reported so far, can have the intake capacity of 60,000 cusecs, much higher than the existing capacity of the Jhelum river, which is a mere 25,000 cusecs.