CPM MLA Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami on Friday said that all claims made by the PDP-BJP government on their alertness have been exposed with few inches of snow causing massive power breakdown, road blockades, scarcity of rations, water-logging and other difficulties faced by the people in Kashmir.
In a statement, Tarigami said despite the prediction by the Meteorological Department, the state administration was ill-prepared for the snowfall. Although snowfall is not something new to the state given its climatic conditions and topography, the administration seems resisting change in its rusty work culture.
With a few inches of snow the entire administration comes to a grinding halt which is reflective of a dire need for strengthening of disaster preparedness in Jammu and Kashmir.
Snow is yet to be cleared on several roads in rural areas across the valley resulting in tremendous hardship to the general public. Due to the clousre of 300-kilometers long Srinagar-Jammu national highway for the last three days, hundreds of passengers, including children and women, are stranded in Jammu. The airfares have sky rocketed due to the closure of the highway but the government is least bothered.