Enhance planning and competence to tackle natural disasters Bhalla urges LG Administration to immediate repair all damages due to heavy rain

Jammu: Former Minister and senior Congress leader Raman Bhalla on Friday said that though one cannot avoid natural calamities but a right set of policies and practices can stop those natural calamities from turning into human disaster. The losses of lives, livelihoods, and infrastructure due to the floods after unusual rains reflect lacunas in disaster preparedness, disaster prevention, and disaster mitigation policies. Although the rain is over, but we can see hundreds of villages are still affected by water. They do require food, clean drinking water, medicines to avoid the risk of outbreak of skin diseases, cholera and diarrhoea, feed and veterinary care for remaining livestock, shelter, etc. In the absence of local government there is no room for local people’s say in emergency aid delivery and rehabilitation efforts.

 Former Minister on Friday continued visiting rain affected areas to take stock of the damages caused by floods. Today he toured Sanjay Nagar ward -46 sector -2  Prominent among those present on the occasion include  HD Sharma,  Suram Singh, Romesh Gandhi, Rewail Bhatti,  Mohan Lal, Master Bhagwan Dass,  Parkash Choudhary. Vikram Singh, Jasbir Singh Jassi  and others. Bhalla maintained that Local Self help groups must be strengthened and empowered so that they face less dependency in the event of floods. The loss of livelihood opportunities directly affects the socio-economic access to food. Loss to physical infrastructure, stored food commodities, and livestock affect the physical availability of food. Prevalence of diseases during floods negatively affects food absorption in human body. The real challenge is to develop feasible alternatives to ensure an effective governance system which helps in stopping natural calamities from turning into a human disaster, added Bhalla.

 The 24-hour rainfall was enough to bring low-lying areas in Jammu to their knees. People complained that authorities have failed to learn the lessons from the 2014 floods. Residents of many areas said that they have been regularly complaining to the authorities to take measures that could safeguard them from the destruction that is brought by floods, but they never pay any heed.“In Just two days of rain, see their condition. What if it rains harder in the days to come”? Bhalla questioned. People said that more than five year has passed since the floods that claimed lost of huge lives but no lessons seem to have been learnt. “What emerges is a familiar story of agencies failing to communicate, a lack of planning and awareness and the incompetence to tackle such disasters,” said Bhalla.

 Former Minister said now it is high time for the government, both state and central, to work on proper counter mechanisms for such disasters. He said that ideally, in the aftermath of the disaster, introspection should have been done at every level government, public, individual about what went wrong in 2014 so as to develop a mitigation plan for future, but nothing of the sort happened. He blamed the district administration and Jammu Municipal Corporation (JMC) for failing to upgrade the drainage system in the city which often leads to water-logging as soon as there is a downpour.“Authorities have turned deaf ears towards this issue of grave importance. Water logging has badly affected the business as customers are not able to reach the shops they intend to,” he said. He alleged that there was not even a single lane in the city, which is not waterlogged. People were seen treading through water-logged roads while traffic movement also slowed down due to the inundation.

 The choked drains, according to him led to water logging in various city localities.Bhalla assured the gathering that he will take up the matter of damages and also demanded compensation for damages.He asked administration to take all preventive measures to minimize the losses. He said that necessary instructions should be issued to the concerned authorities for repair of all the damages at earliest so that the inhabitants of the area do not suffer. He also urged the authorities to ensure strong embankments of all nallahs in the area to preventing flooding residential areas which can cause huge damage to the private properties of the people.

 Bhalla  said that Government should take all pre-emptive measures to prevent any future threat from floods.  He said the Government should go whole hog in restoring private infrastructure as well. “The damage to the houses has been unprecedented and demanded compensation to the victims under NDRF norms, ,” he added.  Though the master plan is already for Jammu and Srinagar but I am afraid, whether they are functioning as per the plan. The purpose of declaring city as Smart City is to make city wear modern look and have more facilities. How the government will go ahead with modernisation is a real challenge, added Bhalla.