Congress demands desilting of Jhelum river, Dal, Wular lakes to prevent flooding in Srinagar

The Congress on Tuesday asked the Jammu and Kashmir administration to immediately start work on desilting of the Jhelum River as well as the Dal and Wular lakes to prevent flooding in Srinagar.

Senior Congress leader and former minister Ghulam Ahmed Mir warned the administration that if the de-silting project of these water bodies is not undertaken immediately, the people of Srinagar “will have to bear huge losses like 2014” when floods wreaked havoc in the city.

As many as 300 people died and 25 sustained injuries in floods that battered Jammu and Kashmir in September 2014.

Mir, the former Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) president, said the Jhelum River and Dal and Wular lakes have enormous siltation, “but, the local administration, busy in show-offs, does not have any concern about it”.

It was only in the last Congress regime that the work of desiltation was undertaken. However, since then, no practical work has been done to save the people of Kashmir from the devastations of floods, Mir said.

“It takes only a few hours of rain to trigger a flood-like situation in Kashmir, particularly in Srinagar,” he said.