Govt stuck in experiments of dewatering at Jawahar Nagar

The government is stuck in the experiments of dewatering flood waters from posh Jawahar Nagar area for the third consecutive week without much result.
The locals displaced by floods visit the area every day in the morning and watch the sluggish dewatering efforts of the government.
“The government has failed in the first test and so far it has experimented many methods to drain out flood waters from the locality. Fire tenders, high capacity water pumps and manual drainage have been used for last twenty days to dewater flood-hit Jawahar Nagar,” said Rafiq Ahmad, local.
He said after twenty days of failed efforts to dewater the locality, government pressed one of the heavy water pump provided by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Mumbai to drain out the water.
“Instead of pressing heavy machinery earlier when water level was around 20  feets, it was chiding with the small pumps and fire tenders and wasted three weeks time,” Rafiq said.
On the insistence of local population, authorities dug road at various places on Bund side to release the water manually into the flood channel.
“Had we not insisted government to dig the road to release the waters into flood channels manually, the fire tenders and small water pumps would have taken two months to dewater the place,” said the locals.
Showkat Ahmad, a local resident, was  concerned about the ongoing pace of dewatering in the area.
He said the area is still under three feets of water and there are chances that many bodies may be lying in the houses that collapsed in the floods.
“We have already recovered some bodies in the area. Since the damage to property is heavy and many residential houses have collapsed, we fear there could be more bodies in the debris as many people are massing,” Showkat said.
He alleged that post flood measures taken by the government were dismal and forced flood affected people to opt for rented accommodation at hefty charges.
“During the floods, government totally ignored us and only local youth rescued us.  Even no relief and accommodation was provided to us by the government,” Showkat said.
Jawahar Nagar alongwith Rajbagh, Indira Nagar, Shivpora and Bemina was the worst-hit by the floods and about two to three storeyes of the houses were submerged in waters.