Ever since the river spilled over its banks in 2014, leading to devastating floods in Kashmir, any sign of the Jhelum swelling has led to considerable alarm among local residents. In the 2014 floods property worth crores across the state were damaged.
Last year, panic struck when a flood alert was issued after heavy rain caused water-logging in parts of the Valley. A similar panic had also spread in September 2015, when Kashmir was still recovering from the 2014 deluge.
The two days of rainfall brought Kashmir on the brink of floods exposing the hollow claims of flood preparedness, especially the project of dredging River Jehlum. The special branch of J&K police also submitted a report to the government in 2016, when the state was under governor rule, suggesting thorough investigation in first phase of 399-crore flood management programme around Jhelum. The dredging project was closed in March 2018 This was the first phase of the project of Rs 1577 crore sanctioned under Prime Minister’s Development package announced in 2015. However, the government never followed up the police report.
The officials claim that out of 399 crore only 196 crore were spent in last four years till march 2018, of which dredging was a major component of around Rs 46 crore. The dredging project was also closed in March 2018 after extension and Irrigation and Flood Control department claims that 13.4 lakh cubic meters of sand and silt was dredged from the river Jehlum in Srinagar, Sopore and Baramullah, out of the slotted 16.15 lakh cubic meters. The pending three lakh cubic meters are not being dug out, government official say due to non-availability of disposal sites and also delay in payments.
The special branch claimed that they were unable to find the place where such humongous amount of sand was deposited, at a time when government claimed that around nine lakh cubic meters of sand were dug out from the river basin till 2016. The investigators observed similar trend in 2017 and 18.
“We have made several observations on this project especially in wake of 2016 protests as people were upset even with the basic governance. This dredging looked like a sham, right from the beginning. We could not find any place where this sand was deposited,” a senior investigator privy to the report told.
He explained and has mentioned in the report that “Nine lakh cubic meters of sand needed at least three lakh trips of trucks to deposit it somewhere, which means a huge movement of trucks and lot of area to deposit it. We could not get any evidence of that…It was like dredging happened at few spots where inspections were held and that too for the sake of official records.” On Friday and Saturday most of the population in and around Srinagar relived the horror scenes of 2014 floods as government declared flood threat and many of them started relocating the essentials.
“Allah intervened and stopped the rainfall, otherwise if left to the government and our claims, all of us would have been living a more dangerous sequel of 2014,” a senior bureaucrat, who part of the disaster management team told.
Former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah raised similar queries regarding the Jehlum dredging hinting at large scale corruption saying that 48 hours of not that heavy rainfall had everybody scrambling for high ground.
“Where did all the dredging money go?….What of the flood channel? Mud dug out by manual labor and JCBs was piled in the flood channel itself. The rain just washed that mud back in to the channel that had been dug,” he wrote on Facebook, in wake of the recent rising water levels in Jehlum and other flood channels.
He also urged Governor N N Vohra to order and inquiry in to the wastage of money allegedly spent on dredging the Jehlum. “This inquiry should also cover the supposed deepening of the flood channel,” he wrote.
The current Chief Engineer of Irrigation and Flood Control M M Shahnawaz reasoned that 95 to 100 mm rainfall in southern Kashmir is not normal and thus water will accumulate, besides, the wet lands in and around Srinagar, Baramullah and Bandipora haven’t been prepared yet to absorb such huge quantity of water.
“There are some bottle necks. The wetlands of Hokarsar, Nowgam and even Wular Lake is not prepared yet to absorb heavy water load. The Pune based organization assigned to study river Jehlum gave their final detailed report recently and now we are in process of preparing a DRP for the next phase,” Shahnawaz told.
FLOOD MANAGEMENT PLANS
According to Prof. Shakil Romshoo, Head of the Kashmir University’s Earth Sciences Department, the drainage capacity of the Jhelum has significantly reduced over time due to massive siltation and because dredging has not kept pace with the rate of siltation.
Romshoo added that the loss of wetlands that absorb water during the floods have also reduced the storage capacity of the river basin. “As a result, the Jhelum swells up quickly after just 100 mm of rainfall in the catchment, as witnessed in 2015 and again last week,” he said.
After the 2014 floods, a sum of Rs 1,458.7 crore was approved under the Prime Minister’s Development Package for a two-phase flood management plan for the Jhelum. This plan also largely focused on dredging.
The first phase of the plan was allocated Rs 400 crore to dredge and build protection walls at various spots along the Jhelum – from Khanabal in South Kashmir to Baramulla in North Kashmir – and on various works on the existing flood spill channel.
According to a written reply to a question asked in the state legislative council earlier this year, the second phase of the plan is expected to improve the Jhelum’s water carrying capacity “to its maximum capacity of 60,000 cusecs [cubic feet per second] in South Kashmir”. In Srinagar, this capacity is to be increased to 35,000 cusecs. The remaining 25,000 cusecs is to be diverted through the flood spill channel, whose discharge capacity is also proposed to be increased.
The reply said that more long-term measures included the construction of water storage on tributaries of the Jhelum and supplementary flood spill channels. The flood monitoring system of the Jhelum basin would be upgraded “by installing automatic water level recorders, automatic discharge recorders and automatic weather stations etc”, according to the reply.
The flood control department, in collaboration with department of disaster management, relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction, has also floated an expression of interest for consultancy services to explore the feasibility of these projects and their implications for the environment.
GOVERNOR’S VISIT TO FLOOD CONTROL ROOM.
While making an unscheduled visit to the State Flood Control Room, located at HariNiwas Srinagar, Governor N N Vohra attended the proceedings of the extensive meeting taken by Divisional Commissioner Kashmir Baseer Khan to review preparedness of all wings of the Divisional Administration to evacuate the affected residents if the Jhelum crosses the high flood level.
This meeting reviewed every aspect of preparedness of the Relief Centres, being established all over the city, to receive and look after the affected population which would be shifted to these centres as soon as the Jhelum river level crosses a given level.
Governor is keeping in constant touch with the key functionaries and has directed that Situation Reports should be sent to him thrice a day till the present situation eases.
The meeting was attended by Deputy Commissioner Srinagar Dr Syed Abid Rasheed Shah and Officers from the Department of Police; CRPF; Health, Indian Meteorological Department; Tourism; Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs; J&K LAWDA; Srinagar Municipal Corporation; JKSRTC; Irrigation and Flood Control; Maintenance & Rural Electrification Wing; Public Health Engineering; Roads & Building; Information; Estates, and FCI.
