Communications blockade affects work in government offices

Communications blockade affects work in government offices

SRINAGAR: The two month long communications shutdown affecting mobile and internet has severely hit work in government departments.
Power Development Department, Horticulture, Irrigation and Flood Control are classic examples to describe the impact of the gag.
Power Development Department (PDD) which is facing revenue deficit every year has not received monthly dues from its consumers since August.
A power department official cited lack of communication with ground staff as the reason for delay in disbursing power bills to its consumers.
He said that although the department has generated bills but they were gathering dust due to disconnect with field staff. Many consumers would submit dues through e-banking but that has also come to halt due to internet blackout, he added.
“Office and field staff is disconnected because of no mobile telephony. Field staff has to reach to the office for petty works. Also, in case of eventuality, faults, we cannot reach to ground workers,” he said and apprehended longer cuts in case of any fault if the restrictions prolong to winter.
Another case in point is Irrigation and Flood Control department which keeps people updated about flood alerts.
An official from the department said they have not updated their App which keeps people posted about water level at flood gates including south Kashmir’s Sangam, Srinagar’s Ram Munshi Bagh and Asham in north Kashmir.
Horticulture, (Planning and Marketing) besides doing its routine work has been assigned to monitor the functioning of recently launched market intervention scheme for apples growers.
An official dealing with the monitoring of the scheme told Kashmir Reader the department has been collecting the day-to-day basis transactions of the trade from assigned centres on phone, which otherwise was supposed to be posted online. Every day, he said, an official remains on phone to get the data from the centres.
“The performance of the scheme reached out to various government offices through our department. This goes through an official who has been tasked to gather data on phone,” he said.

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