Secretary, Planning Development and Monitoring Department (PDMD), Dr. Raghav Langer today visited Budgam district and reviewed the progress of work on Central Control Building for UT level Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) Control Room Building being constructed by J&K ERA under the World Bank funded Jhelum Tawi Flood Recovery Project at Ompura, here .
During the visit, the Secretary took a detailed round of complex and held onspot assessment of the ongoing works there.Interacting with the senior officers there, the Secretary impressed upon them to expedite the pace of work on this prestigious project so that it gets completed within the given timeline.He remarked that after the completion of this coveted project seamless management of any emergency situation under one roof can be achieved and any exigency can be dealt with effectively.
Dr Raghav Langer also asked the officers to take up the matter of alternative access to the EOC with the Chief Engineer, PWD(R&B) Kashmir.During the visit, Director Kashmir JKERA, Er. Javaid Bukhari informed the Secretary that the State of Art Emergency Operations Centre is being constructed at an allotted cost of Rs 34.88 Cr and will have all the integrated facilities required for the efficient and seamless management of an emergency situation.
It was also informed that the UT level Emergency Operations Centre will be used for the stocking of various relief and rescue equipment’s like rescue boats, portable pumps and essential food commodities besides it will also have two concrete platforms for pitching of tents for evacuation as well as Helipad for emergency landing of Helicopters.Director P&C , JTFRP informed the Secretary that the EOC is being equipped with all the latest modern web-based –I.T enabled tools, used for the forecasting of natural disasters and coordinating the relief and rescue operations in case of any natural disasters like earthquake, floods, avalanches, snow storm etc.
It was also informed that these web-based IT tools like Decision Support System, Integrated Operational Flood Forecasting System, Disaster Risk Database which have already been developed by JKERA under the World Bank funded JTFRP have been handed over to the department of DMRRR.While reviewing the progress on SCADA, the Secretary was informed that the work on the installation of SCADA systems in the 80 pumping stations in Srinagar city is in progress and hi-tech equipments like PLC Level switches, level transducers, level transmitters etc along with the installation of I.T facilities like Broadband, GPRS and V-Sat will be established for ensuring the 24x7 internet connectivity of each pumping station with the Central SCADA Control Room Building at Ompura.Notably, SCADA is a latest system of software and hardware that would allow remotely controlling, switching on /off, help in timely identification of faults and monitoring the operations like managing the flow in all the dewatering stations in Srinagar City.