Jahangeer Ganaie
Srinagar, Sep 15: After devastating floods ravaged Kashmir in 2014, a comprehensive flood mitigation plan was announced and so far phase 1 has been completed while work on the second phase is going to start shortly.
Chief Engineer Irrigation and Flood control Naresh Kumar said that work on phase 2 is going to start soon.
He said that in phase 1 their target was to increase the capacity of river Jhelum to 40,000 cusecs and under phase 2 the capacity will be taken to 60,000 cusecs.
The Flood Management Plan was divided into two phases. The phase 1 funded under the Prime Minister’s Development Package with a budget of Rs 399 crore included spot dredging as per requirement to increase the capacity of river Jhelum so as to minimize the damage if there will be floods again.
An official said that the Government of India has constituted a committee to suggest measures to prevent such calamities in future and in their report committee recommended several long term measures including additional supplementary flood spill channel, creation of storage facilities on tributaries of Jhelum, flood plain zoning and enhancing capacity of Wular Lake.
