September 19,2017: The point is, floods are not new to the kashmir valley and with the kind of drainage the region enjoys, flooding esp. in the valley areas is always a very real possibility. The question is, why haven't we learned any lessons from the past and prepared ourselves for such situtations? The state unit of the disater management is poorly equipped to say the least and the staff are hardly trained even by basic standards. The questions to be asked are, why is there no effective disater management training for the SDMA staff or no water-sports training for the lakhs of police personal deployed in the valley and other relevant organizations? What about absconding state government officials who went missing from duty just when they were needed the most in esp? Will they be tried under provisions of the Essential Services Mainance Act (ESMA) eventually, It needs to be noted that while it may seem pre-mature to ask these questions at this juncture, the answers to these very questions may hold the key to future containment of damage and efficient handling of such situtations. Even in Srinagar where flood warning was issued at the eleventh hour in 2014 floods , people did not know where to go if they evacuated their houses. There were no relief camps, no arrangements for food supply, no medicines.
Mushtaq Pahalgami,
Himalayan Welfare Organization-HWO
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