Following the devastating floods in Kashmir and submergence of Srinagar city, Chief Engineer Irrigation and Flood Department Kashmir Monday said that the department has submitted a comprehensive proposal to Union Ministry for Water Resources to save Kashmir Valley from flood fury in future. “I along with a special team went to New Delhi a day before and we met number of officials of Ministry of Water Resources and Central Water Commission. We submitted a detailed proposal seeking various measures to reduce the threat of floods in future,” Chief Engineer I&FC Javid Jaffer told CNS adding that the department will seriously pursue the proposal and would ensure that the drainage capacity of flood channels in Kashmir gets enormously increased.
He said the proposal submitted by their department has highlighted all those points that are needed to be addressed to avoid future flood threats. “Besides increasing thedrainage capacity of flood channels in the Valley we badly need construction of protection wall along river Jehlum. We have already started work on the embankments of Jehlum that had been breached. Earth filling work is going on and at the same time Dredging of Jehlum is also in progress,” he said and added that the River Jehlum doesn’t desliting everywhere.
Chief Engineer Flood and Irrigation Control told CNS that the department is finding all the ways and means to find out what happened in the floods and how to prevent such disasters of this scale in the future. He said that there is a need to channel the Jhelum River in such a way that it would easily bypass Srinagar. “We will ensure that in future floods don’t become the source of devastation,” he said. And added that Central assistance to avoid flood threats in future is badly needed.
He said that it was beyond his department’s control to save the embankments from getting breached at a number of places as the Jehlum was flowing with all time high in a great speed. “The discharge capacity of river Jhelum is 25000 to 30000 cusecs, whereas the flow of water during floods was above 1.15 lakh cusecs,” he said and added that the department will start ground work once the Central Government approves their proposal. (CNS)