Jammu and Kashmir floods: Rage of Jhelum submerges Paradise

Many years ago, my mother used to hold my hands as we crossed the dilapidated bridge on Nala Maar, a natural canal in old Srinagar. What was a canal is now a two-lane pucca road with shopping complexes and offices on either side. Today Nala Maar, ironically and tragically looks like the canal of old: today it is under 10-ft of flood water.

Srinagar's waterways have over the years been destroyed and converted into roads in one of the most short sighted urban planning you can think of. Successive state governments made roads over waterways so that they could ride in triumph at the head of cavalcades. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah in 1978 changed Nala Mar into a concrete road to reach Hazratbal and his ancestral locality Soura from the secretariat in Civil Lines in Srinagar.

I first heard someone describing Srinagar as the Venice of the East in my 4th standard. Srinagar boasted of 20-30 waterbodies crisscrossing the city those days. All these canals would have helped prevent the surging flood which has now ruined the city and most of Kahsmir and resulted in the death of more than 200 people.

With 44 ghats, these canals along with river Jhelum were main avenues of transporting men and material, akin to Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

Today, most of them have been destroyed and in its place stand the kitsch aluminium and glass monuments to urbane madness. Ironically, the Srinagar Development Authority (SDA), assigned to preserve waterbodies, has its complex built on a wetland, along with a 300-bed hospital and Haj House nearby, besides numerous residential colonies.

The floods following five days of heavy rains in a late-monsoon burst is a classic instance of what will happen if mindless construction replaces environmental planning.

"It is so criminal that till floods ravaged Srinagar, flood control department had just five boats, when water level was already rising in South Kashmir," says Mohammad Salim Beg, a former top bureaucrat.

The network of canals in Srinagar like Nala Amir Khan, Gilsar, Kuta Kul, Choonth Kul are all drainages. Wetlands Hokarsar and Narakor, Anchar and Brari Nambal are now garbage dumps. A splendid Bemina locality stands on a wetland. In the apple town of Sopore near Wullar lake, the tehsil office and a shopping complex has come up on a waterbody Bogh.

Like in the 2005 floods, the flood department had tried successfully to push waters into Wullar lake in North Kashmir, to save central Kashmir, including Srinagar. Wullar, though a large fresh water lake pushed back the water. Experts over past many years had been warning of the death of Wullar lake, the major water bank in the region. Siltation in the heart of the lake now makes it impossible for boats to ply. River Jhelum which starts its journey from a Veerinag spring after crossing Srinagar and Sonawari drains into Wullar lake and restarts its journey from there, till it joins Indus in Pakistan. The lake along with Jhelum from Bandipora to Sopore need urgent dredging.

Salim Beg, now a member of National Monument Authority, believes that in Kashmir Valley just 15,000-16,000 sqkm land is available meant for population. "We cannot lavishly build and way back, an alternative system should have been explored to house the burgeoning population," he said. In 2010, the J&K government had made an elaborate Rs. 2200 crore plan to control floods, which was submitted to the central government. It was partly approved. Then flood minister Taj Mohudin with a fanfare procured two dredgers. But since the new minister Sham Lal Sharma took over two years back, he stopped dredging.

In 7th century, Raja Parvarsen built it on the foothills of Hari Parbhat hills. Again Muslim rulers in the 14th century rebuilt it between Nawhatta (Srinagar Jama Masjid) to Nowshehra. The current posh Civil Lines localities were meant only for transitory and labour population. "Ancient engineers like Soya Hakim and Ali Wardi Khan had build and discouraged the populating of low-lying areas and had build an elaborate network of canals, which now stand blocked," says Beg, who is also a known conservationist.

To add to the misery, the Central Water Commission (CWC) has no flood warning station for river Jhelum, due to the Indus Water Treaty (IWT), India has with Pakistan. The CWC has flood warning systems on rivers having storages and dams. Since under the IWT, dams and storages are disallowed on Jhelum; no one bothered to build any flood warning or monitoring system.