Got the relief? Now foot the bill

JK asked to pay for bottled water sent from Delhi during floods

It seems that flood-relief material dispatched to Kashmir on the directions of Government of India in the midst of last year’s devastating floods was not relief at all.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), a Government of India (GoI) enterprise, has asked the J&K government to foot the bill amounting to Rs 38 lakhs on account of packaged drinking water sent by it to flood-hit people here last year.

The bills submitted by the Corporation reveal that 3,66,264 bottles were ferried to Jammu and Kashmir by Indian Air Force while another 25,920 were sent via Northern Railways.

According to documents accessed by this newspaper, the Corporation has taken up the issue of payment with hierarchy of the state’s bureaucracy repeatedly.

“The Corporation has written to Principal Secretary Home, Suresh Kumar; Commissioner Secretary Revenue Vinod Koul; Principal Secretary Planning & Development Department, BR Sharma; and JK’s Resident Commissioner at New Delhi, Lokesh Jha to clear the bills,” sources disclosed.

The disclosure has come close on the heels of State government’s proposal for relief and rehabilitation of the last year’s flood-hit people being slashed by the Government of India.

Against the Rs 2900 crore demand projected by the state government in line with the existing norms of relief and rehabilitation, the Centre has only sanctioned Rs 1120 crore.

The state’s bureaucrats resented the move during a high-level meeting on February 3 with then Union Home Secretary Anil Goswami in Jammu.

The floods which hit Kashmir in September 2014 caused heavy loss to both private and public property.