Srinagar: Advisor, K Vijay Kumar and Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam called an emergency meeting of senior officers of the Civil and Police Administration and also the Army early Saturday morning to review the preparedness across Kashmir division, in particular Srinagar City, in the wake of flood like situation following incessant rains.
Director General of Police, J&K, Dr S P Vaid, Principal Secretary Home, R K Goyal, ADGP, Civil Defence, Home Guards & SDRF, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, IG Kashmir Zone, SSP Srinagar, DC Srinagar, Chief Engineer, I&FC, Kashmir, Director Health Services, Kashmir, Director Met Department, J&K, and other senior officers of the State Government, CRPF and Army attended the meeting.
The Advisor and Chief Secretary took a detailed review of the preparations and received brief from the concerned officers/line departments. The Advisor and Chief Secretary issued a slew of directions/instructions to the concerned officers for immediate compliance which interalia, include (i) alerting the people living in the low lying/ vulnerable areas, to be vigilant about the flood situation and be in preparedness for evacuation-currently, this is only an alert for being prepared and people should be on the lookout for the next alert for evacuation, if necessary (ii) establishing joint control room with components from civil, police, CRPF and Army at Hari Niwas and disseminating contact details to the public (iii) All relief and rescue material- men, boats etc to be kept in readiness to promptly respond to any evacuation call (iv) Divisional Commissioner to put competent ADMs/SDMs at the disposal of DC Srinagar immediately, to facilitate coordination in the matters relating to control room, evacuation, recue, relief etc (v) Civil and Police Administration to prepare for communication redundancies (viii) Civil Administration to prepare for redundancies related to essential supplies including power, ration, fuel and medicine (ix) DC Srinagar to ensure that shelters/evacuation centres are ready with basic facilities like food, water, blankets etc for housing people, in the event of evacuation of people (x) Principal Secretary Home, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir, IG Kashmir, DC Srinagar in coordination with Information Department to disseminate information through electronic and print media to the public about the flood situation in the division.
Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir was instructed to issue an advisory to the departments to relocate the critical equipment in hospitals and other important installations to safe places where the flood threat is less, like upper floors of the official buildings.
CRPF was requested to keep all its boats available along with manpower ready for any assistance, in coordination with IG, Kashmir. The Army was also requested to keep manpower, boats and aerial support ready along with communication sets in case of any eventuality, in coordination with IG, Kashmir
Advisor and Chief Secretary asked the officers to handle the situation calmly, confidently and sagaciously and mobilize their staff for meeting any eventuality and initiate immediate action, wherever required, without waiting for instructions from the higher ups.
