Life under the siege of snow

The J&K government had moved to Jammu — the winter capital — leaving the ordinary Kashmiri to face the crisis. It seemed to be missing in action. The administration has 34 snow ploughs, but few appeared to be in operation. Srinagar’s two main thoroughfares, Moulana Azad and Residency Road, looked like narrow stretches carved between mounds of snow. Mufti Mohammad Sayeed’s official residence falls right here but he was not in town. Such a crisis should at least have prompted the administration to set up a control room. But there were no sign of concerted relief activities.

The immediate future looks forbidding. Valley’s lone link with rest of the world, the National Highway, is still to become completely operational. The Border Road Organisation has already lost six men in snow clearing operations near the Jawahar Tunnel. The shortage of fuel has exposed the apathy of the state government as well as the national companies. The three national companies, Indian Oil Corporation, HPCL and BPCL, are supposed to keep necessary stocks of petroleum products, including petrol and cooking gas. This time stocks ran out in four days. There were two officers assigned with the job to ensure that there is enough fuel stored in the Valley during the winter. But the coordinator in the state for these companies was in Jammu. Clearly, the siege of snow had caught the government completely unawares. They failed to impress upon people that they cared.