J&K govt fails to complete process to prevent 2014 like catastrophe deluge

September 2014 like devastating deluge may hit Kashmir valley again as the J&K government has failed to complete the required process to prevent such a catastrophe in the future.

Sources in the region's department of Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) department said that the dredging process in river Jhelum that was started in 2015 has not been completed yet.

“It was planned that the dredging and desilting of the Jhelum will be completed by March 2019. However, the second and the main phase of the process, which would increase the capacity of the Jhelum, is yet to start,” they revealed.

The Rs 280 crore dredging project for phase-I was awarded to Reach Dredging Private Limited, a Kolkata based company, to clear the excessive siltation that had accumulated and drastically reduced the carrying-capacity of river Jhelum.

However, in 2018, the department of I&FC had asked the Kolkata based dredging firm to wind up operations after it failed to meet the deadline.

While Chief Engineer, I&FC, Iftikhar Kakroo agrees that the second phase of the dredging is yet to start, he is hopeful the process will be initiated this year only. “As of now the department is capable of tackling a middle-level deluge, but we are not yet ready to tackle 2014 like situation,” he said.

Kakroo added they were trying to reach there in stages. “At present, the department is not ready to accommodate the 2014 level of flood. But, we are gradually moving towards that,” he said.

Experts fear that if the government doesn’t take immediate steps to overhaul the flood control mechanism, Kashmir will witness frequent floods in the coming years. The unabated encroachment of the tributaries and flood channels, and a negligible effort to de-silt the river basin, are pitched as major reasons that led to the overflow of water in 2014.

"Kashmir’s geography and climate being what it is, we can’t just wish away extreme flooding. But we can certainly work on devising ways to minimise its potential for destruction - and we must,” says Prof Shakil A Romshoo, who heads the Department of Earth Sciences, Kashmir University.

"To avoid floods in Kashmir the government has to work on a major project. Save for a few measures aimed at increasing the drainage capacity of the Jhelum, no concerted effort has been made to devise a strategy for minimising flood risk to people and infrastructure, especially in the Jhelum basin," Romshoo added.

In September 2014, Kashmir witnessed disastrous floods across many of its districts caused by torrential rainfall. Nearly 280 people lost their lives while property worth billions was destroyed due to the floods.

According to official figures, several thousand villages across the valley had been hit and hundreds of villages had been completely submerged. The damage was made worse by the government's inept disaster management.

Many parts of Srinagar city, including the Border Security Force (BSF) Headquarter in Sanat Nagar and Army cantonment in Badamibagh, were inundated, and vital roads were submerged by the floods.