Minister for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Sham Lal Chaudhary convened a joint meeting with the officers and officials from all departments to take a review of the situation in Jammu province post heavy rainfall in recent days. The Minister took detailed account of the total damages occurred in each district to public and private infrastructure. He asked the officials to ensure immediate necessary action for damage control especially near the banks of river Tawi, Chenab and various nallahs in the region. The Minister also gave strict directions to the PHE department to ensure that every filtration plant which suffers damage due to rainfall is restored on priority basis. Following the reports of heavy rainfall expected in Jammu region this season, the Minister said that we have to strengthen our preventive and precautionary measures so that this season takes as less a toll on the people as possible. He directed the officials to optimally utilize State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) to take up as much disaster relief works as possible. Responding to the queries by the MLAs regarding some pending projects in their respective areas, the Minister directed the officers to keep a strict follow up on the projects with regular monitoring for early completion. The MLAs brought forth the problems and issues from their constituencies to the notice of the concerned officers. They communicated in detail the points of concerns in their respective areas that need immediate attention before the next heavy rainfall to minimize the extent of damage to life and property. They also reiterated the need of strengthening the communication channels between the Government officials and elected representatives to ensure that no area, no person is deprived of the essential services and amenities. Present in the meeting were MLA Jammu West Sat Paul Sharma, MLA Bani Jewan Lal, MLA Kathua Rajiv Jasrotia, MLA Hira Nagar Kuldeep Raj, MLA Samba Devinder Kumar Manyal, MLA Akhnoor Rajeev Sharma, MLA Ranbir Singh Pura Dr. Gagan Bhagat, Chief Engineers from Irrigation, Flood Control, PHE and RTIC, and other senior officers. Later, the Minister visited Biaspur Parlah area and took a survey of the damage incurred by flooding of Grore Nallah. He met the locals and assured all necessary action will be taken to contain such flooding as best as possible. He directed the concerned officers to build a protection wall along the nallah to contain the water flow. He asked the flood control department to build the crate wall and do the needful to expedite the matter.
