Jammu & Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday failed to make it to the civil secretariat complex which still remain submerged in 3 to 4 feet of floodwater.
Handful of State Government employees, most of them from security apparatus, marked their attendance at the entry gate of the complex before returning home.Out of more than 4,000 employees less than 400 people managed to reach there wading through knee deep water level. Jammu based employees attached with the durbar move offices apparently decided to stay back in the absence of any arrangements made by the govt to accommodate them in Srinagar.
The hasty decision to throw open the civil secretariat, the seat of power of the State Government, was earlier taken during the cabinet meeting on September 15.Though the Government had deployed trucks to ferry secretariat employees from the main gate but none of them came down and entered the main building due to water logging on the ground floor.
Some senior Cabinet Ministers too made an effort to visit their offices but could not make it to the complex due to water-logging. According to official sources, despite working hard for last four days the Government failed to complete the dewatering inside the high security complex. Following this development, the senior officers went in to huddle and decided to operate from old secretariat building from Friday.
Meanwhile, in view of the prevailing ground situation the State board of school education on Thursday decided to postpone Class 10 and Class 12 board examinations till further orders.On the other hand the city of Srinagar continue to grapple with variety of issues before starting the rehabilitation process.
Despite reopening of Jammu-Srinagar National Highway large parts of Srinagar are reeling under acute shortage of essential items as most of the local markets remain closed or have stocks which could not be consumed.The house owners returning to their devastated houses are struggling to rebuild their lives and busy in clearing slush.
In worst affected areas of Jawahar Nagar and Rajbagh the rescue workers continue to shift the stranded people to safer locations amid rising fear of increasing number of cases of house collapse.The business street along the lal Chowk continue to remain submerged even though dewatering work is currently going on. Some of the hospitals on the periphery are attending to large rush of patients while health camps run by doctors are much in demand across Srinagar.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah Thursday also met representatives of mobile companies and requested them to restore communication channels at the earliest.