Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) party president, Mehbooba Mufti Saturday said the post flood reconstruction and building of a modern city in Anantnag will be a focus point of her party once it is voted to form the government in Jammu and Kashmir.“The recent floods in Kashmir took a heavy toll in South Kashmir as whole and the Anantnag constituency including the district headquarters too suffered a lot of damage where many houses were destroyed, businesses got badly affected, agriculture and horticulture fields were washed away leaving the people devastated,” she said and added rehabilitation of the flood affected and flood impacted will be the first priority of the PDP.She was addressing various roadside meetings in Anantnag constituency in South Kashmir.
Seeking votes for the party patron, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed, who is the party’s candidate for Anantnag constituency, Mehbooba said her party has formulated a comprehensive plan to rebuild lives, economy and infrastructure afresh in a planned way and it needs the support of the people to make this happen on the ground.The PDP chief said after having drowned the Kashmiris, the National Conference-led government has miserably failed in its duty to provide them any relief. “The people who have lost their homes are facing hard times and are still living in tents bracing cold weather conditions. It should have been the priority of any sensitive government to at least provide the homeless people prefabricated structures but they have been left to live in tarpaulin tents,” Mehbooba said and added instead the relief was provided to the people who were not affected by the floods for petty political considerations by the Omar Abdullah government.
The PDP chief said Anantnag town is the headquarters of a very important area which is full of natural assets and tourist destination and has suffered a deliberate neglect under the ruling National Conference-led government.
“The PDP realizes the importance of Anantnag town as a major stop in the tourist circuit of South Kashmir and its historic importance as a trading hub and administrative headquarters of the area,” she said and regretted that all initiatives taken to modernize the infrastructure in the area by the previous PDP-led government have been completely shelved by the outgoing Omar Abdulla regime.Mehbooba said Anantnag town will be decongested and developed on the modern lines with all basic amenities and world class infrastructure once the PDP forms the government under the leadership of Mufti Mohammad Sayeed.She said besides a medical college which has already been sanctioned for Anantanag, the PDP will also establish an engineering college in the area. She said work on the 300 hundred bed hospital in the area will be accelerated so that the specialized treatment is locally available.
Mehbooba said the scenic spots of the town would be developed for providing recreational facilities to locals. She said the Herbagh and its surroundings including the spring and other springs like Malakhnag would be developed in accordance with a proper plan and their preservation ensured. “There was a tremendous scope for development of Fatehgarh heights into appropriate tourist facility and the area would be connected through a rope way between Fatehgarh and Ranibagh Park,” she added.Mehbooba expressed concern over the tardy execution of work on Srinagar- Qazigund stretch of the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway which has put the people to a lot of hardships and inconvenience.
“The inability of the present government to pursue the execution of this vital road link has put thousands of commuters to daily inconvenience,” she said and added work on the project will be completed in a shortest possible time by the PDP government.Mehbooba said though the train services in the Valley have provided the much needed relief to the people but its frequency needs to be increased more so that more and more people can avail the facility. She said it was only after she took up the matter with the railway minister the train services saw a significant improvement but more needs to be done in this regard.