“As the soaring temperatures are creating a drought like situation in Kashmir Valley, the ongoing heat waves is likely to take a heavy toll of the farmers whose only sources of income are paddy fields and apple orchards.”
Climate change is as good a growing public concern in Kashmir as it is anywhere else within and outside the country. Interestingly the people in Kashmir including tourists coming here to get respite from intensifying heat wave in their native places are surprised to see daily temperatures going up at an alarming pace in Srinagar and other parts of Kashmir Valley. The worst hit by the intensifying heat wave in Kashmir Valley are the people connected with agriculture and horticulture farming activities during peak summer periods. While the construction workers coming mostly from other parts of the country known for being the epicenters of heat waves during peak summer periods are hardly troubled by the unprecedented ongoing heat wave in Kashmir Valley, the local farmers undertaking agriculture and horticulture activities during peak summer periods are greatly disturbed both physically and as well as psychologically by the ongoing heat wave here in Kashmir Valley . The soaring temperatures amid intensifying heat wave have brought under stress both the agriculture and farming activities due to increasing irrigation water scarcity in most parts of Kashmir Valley. As lift irrigation plants have ceased to function in most parts of Kashmir Valley and grievances on this count are appearing in news papers and news channel day in and day out, the reducing water levels in the conventional water bodies of rural Kashmir have deepened the crisis of irrigation facilities for the farmers across Kashmir. As the soaring temperatures are creating a drought like situation in Kashmir Valley, the ongoing heat waves is likely to take a heavy toll of the farmers whose only sources of income are paddy fields and apple orchards.
“The unprecedented rise in heat wave and it’s extension beyond peak summer periods as predicted in the weather advisories of the Meteorological Department necessitates a review of the disaster management policy in view of increasing vulnerability of paddy lands and apple orchards to soaring temperatures and scarcity of irrigation water across Kashmir. The situation developing in the aftermath of the ongoing heat wave demands that stress of a draught like disaster reduced through some early measures much before it arrives at full length in Kashmir Valley.”
A draught like situation always necessitates Government intervention and the situation developing in the agriculture and horticulture sectors amid intensifying heat wave here in Kashmir also necessitates a Government intervention for the purposes of securing the livelihoods of both the agriculturists and as well as horticulturists in Valley. While the Central Government is already working on a National Action Plan on Climate Change, the States and Union Territories too have their own climate action plans the focus of which for all obvious reasons is on tackling natural disasters like draughts and floods. The unprecedented rise in heat wave and it’s extension beyond peak summer periods as predicted in the weather advisories of the Meteorological Department necessitates a review of the disaster management policy in view of increasing vulnerability of paddy lands and apple orchards to soaring temperatures and scarcity of irrigation water across Kashmir. The situation developing in the aftermath of the ongoing heat wave demands that stress of a draught like disaster reduced through some early measures much before it arrives at full length in Kashmir Valley.
