The army on Thursday said that 99 percent of flood water in the areas falling under Badami Bagh cantonment has been pumped out while restoration work is going on.Talking to reporters, Ajay Das, who is GoC sub-area Srinagar, said: “On daily basis, we used 150 to 200 pumps in the Badami Bagh cantonment areas. Though many pumps stopped functioning but we brought in new pumps and continued to dewatering process.”He said the army first rescued people and then provided relief including basic commodities. “There are three things in flood: rescue, relief and restoration. We are out of rescue and relief and now we are doing restoration work,” he said, adding: “in restoration, the main things are hygiene and sanitization.”
The GoC said the dewatering was important as these four to five areas in cantonment were completely submerged. “Besides, clearing garbage was also important,” he said.Das informed that 80 percent of sanitization work has been done while 90 percent garbage has been cleared. He said in order to stop disease outbreak, the army sprayed special chemicals which were ordered from outside state. “We have sufficient quantity of those chemicals here,” he said.The army commander said they want to bring normalcy in the cantonment areas and by 15 December, they would turn these areas into ‘model colonies’. (GNS)