Secretariat still under water; Jammu & Kashmir government to operate from old office

SRINAGAR: Some 200 employees including most top officials of Jammu & Kashmir civil secretariat reported to duty on Thursday following Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s pleadings on radio and the government decision to cancel all leaves. But not a single official could get into the building still under water up to hip level.

“Most of the top offices reported to their duties besides a small number of employees,” a secretary rank officer told The ET. “But nobody could get in.”

Three ministers and top officers later met in the neighboring legislative assembly complex and decided to use old secretariat complex to carry out important works from Friday onwards. “We will try to run certain skeletal services which are of emergency nature,” a senior officer said.

Earlier in the day, a few hundred employees reporting to duties were driven into the premises in trucks by the security officials. But they left unable to get into the building.

No government office is functioning in Srinagar since September 7.

The chief minister and his cabinet operates from Hari Niwas guest house on Zabarwan Hills. Police and civil administration officers are functioning at their own and are linked with the chief minister through wireless.

But coming down from the hill to resume governance requires the secretariat, and making the seven-story complex functional is a heady task because access to is blocked from Lal Chowk side. The water-logged main square of the city is key to restoration of the city public transport system.

“Right now, the major challenging task is to get the marooned areas dewatered,” a senior police officer said. “There are pumps in place but draining water from a literal lake like Jawahar Nagar-Rajbagh belt would take a long time.”

T Anjaneyulu, a deputy superintending engineer of the ONGC operating two suction pumps in the area, said the pumps are working to the best of their capacity. “These two pumps have the capacity to drain 10 thousand litters a minute but in last 72 hours of uninterrupted operations we have barely managed reducing the level by only 15 inches,” he said.

Official sources said they have mobilized a number of giant pumps for draining the inundated localities but transporting them to the spot is a problem.

Now, Abdullah has directed engineers to opt for manageable cuts in the banks of Jhelum and its flood spill channel to improve the conditions in the marooned localities.

Another major issue is bringing back employees from Jammu who were housed in hired accommodations in the flooded belt and have returned home after being rescued.

With the winter not far away, one section in the government strongly advocate advancing the durbar move to Jammu from where the state government operates during winter months and has ready infrastructure to house its employees.

They point out that getting the employees back from Jammu would require hiring new accommodation for them at a time when there is a housing shortage in the city to accommodate the flood affected. Both the official colonies housing ministers are still under water.

But another section strongly opposes such a move, saying leaving Kashmir in such a mess would add to the political costs of the ruling coalition. They, in fact, want to cancel durbar move this winter so that Kashmir is looked after well after its worst floods.

Under normal circumstances, the offices in Srinagar would close in the last week of October and return by May 2015.