Amid dry spell, Omar warns of water crisis in Valley, calls for collective action

As dry weather conditions continue unabated in the Valley, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has brought the attention of residents to the water crisis that the Union Territory is staring at at present.

CM Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said the UT was “staring at water crisis this year”. “It’s not a recent phenomenon, actually it’s been building up for a few years now. While the government will have to adopt a more proactive approach for water management and conservation, it can’t just be a government-centric approach,” he said on X.

Kashmir is experiencing around 80 per cent precipitation deficit this winter. Apart from forest fires erupting at several places in the Valley, the prolonged dry spell also has forced the authorities to postpone the fifth edition of the Khelo India Winter Games, originally scheduled for February 22-25 in Gulmarg due to insufficient snowfall.

People in the Valley are worried as several water bodies are drying up.

A video also has now gone viral on social media, showing a woman mourning the drying up of the historic natural spring at Achabal Mughal Garden in south Kashmir — built by Noor Jahan, wife of Mughal emperor Jahangir. The spring has dried up for the first time.

“What has happened to it? Oh my god. Oh spring, why have you shut your water to us?” she laments. “We survive on it,” she says in the video.

Meanwhile, Omar said all J&K residents would have to change the way they took water for granted, adding that he would be reviewing the measures the Jal Shakti (PHE) Department intended to take to deal with the developing crisis.

“I’ll also be talking to the people of J&K over the next few months about what we can do collectively,” he said.

The Meteorological Department in Srinagar told The Tribune that precipitation had been “negligible” over the past few months and now, the situation could only improve if some major snowfall took place in the coming weeks.

Environmentalists, on the other hand, have warned that the lack of winter precipitation could have long-term consequences.