Details

Category: ENVIRONMENT

Published: 08 November 2019

SRINAGAR: The administration including all concerned line departments are working round-the-clock in efforts to restore at the earliest possible services affected as a result of Thursday's snowstorm in Srinagar. Deputy Commissioner Dr Shahid Iqbal Choudhary is closely monitoring the response mechanism put in place in the district to ensure all affected services are restored at the earliest possible.

Overnight efforts of the Mechanical Engineering Department ensured that snow was cleared from the entire main road length of 1253 kilometres in the district by early morning. The Roads & Buildings department which looks after link roads in Srinagar had to manoeuvre around fallen trees and huge branches thereof which hampered its efforts but still managed to clear around 80 percent of the total link road length of 655 kilometres in the district. It has informed that the remaining 20 percent will be cleared by 1 pm tomorrow.

Snow-clearance of lanes and by-lanes which add up to a total number of 6800 and convert into a total length of about 900 kilometres has been a bit of a challenge as most of these require manual clearance but still around 40 percent of it has been done so far. The SMC has said the snow-clearance operation will continue until midnight tonight and restart early morning tomorrow adding that most if not all lanes and by-lanes will be cleared by midnight tomorrow.

Concerned departments are also on the ground in efforts to restore at the earliest power and water distribution network in the district. Half of the 33kV power transmission lines were restored and 30 out of the total 66 receiving stations in the district were charged by 5 pm Friday. Several substations supplying power to areas where important installations like hospitals are located have been restored as efforts are being made to restore as soon as possible all substations that could.

Concerned senior officers are under strict instructions to ensure round-the-clock efforts to restore all affected services as soon as possible. The officers have been asked to monitor the restoration efforts of the field staff working on the ground. The DC has directed for close coordination between all the line departments in their efforts to restore the affected services and as long as the current weather situation prevails.

It is notable that senior officers from concerned departments have been designated as nodal officers for restoration operations and to monitor the situation within their areas of jurisdiction. The officers are operating under the supervision of ADCs M Hanief Balkhi and Khurshid A Shah.