By: Ajaz Ahmad War
The historic city of Srinagar and summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir is in dire need of quality drainage and waste management facilities.
The quality of drainage and waste management facilities determine the Development and progress of any world class city.
As a matter of fact, the Srinagar City is divided into three drainage zones and there are about 50 existing drainage schemes having more than 100km of primary and secondary storm water drains.
Authorities state currently around 89 dewatering pumping stations exist in Srinagar City, having 69 permanent dewatering stations and a sizable number of mobile dewatering pumps, which are manned by the Drainage Division of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation.
Majority of these pumping stations have been retrofitted post floods and raised above the HFL, and even provided with DG sets, with funding from either ADB or World Bank.
The unfortunate reality is that the It is estimated that solid waste generation in Srinagar city is around 500 to 600 million Tonnes per day, out of which only around 50 to 60 percent is collected by SMC and the balance trash finds its way through the storm drains into the water bodies.
The current spell of heavy rains and snowfall have badly exposed the poor drainage and waste management facilities in the Srinagar city which crave for improvement.
Masses are stressing that Srinagar can’t become a world class city without having quality drainage and waste management facilities. The lack of same has destroyed many water bodies in the Kashmir valley.
