Anantnag: A day after the heaviest snowfall of the season, many areas here in Anantnag district remain cut off as roads have not been cleared of snow, while power supply has not been restored yet for dozens of villages.
Such is the situation at a time when the meteorological department has forecast more snowfall in the region.
Deputy Commissioner Anantnag KK Sidha on Sunday morning had told Kashmir Reader that roads had been cleared but traffic been suspended at certain places “due to slippery road conditions”.
Twenty-four hours after that, only the main roads have been cleared of snow while hundreds of roads leading to as many villages remain covered with a thick white blanket.
Only a few kilometers from the Deputy Commissioner’s office, the residents lamented that many important roads were yet to be cleared. “Moomin Abad to Kamad, Dialgam, Laalan, Chichripora and many other roads are yet to be cleared of snow in our area. The irony is that we live only 5 to 7 kilometres from the DC’s office in main town Anantnag. You can imagine the plight of the far-flung villages,” a resident of Dialgam told Kashmir Reader.
Similar complaints were received from Shangus where villages like Ohpaisan, Reenipora, Duethu, Chittergul, Poshnaryen, Czakilpora, Dardipora and others remained cut off.
“Our power supply is also yet to be restored and given the fact that there is no power, we are also facing a shortage of drinking water now. No one from the administration has bothered to look this way. We are on our own,” the residents said.
In Kokernag, where DC Sidha said he had been to on Sunday, the residents lamented that only the main road had been cleared of snow, up to only Kokernag. “There are dozens of villages after Kokernag which have been altogether neglected. Villages like Sonbrari, Halpora, Frimmu and others still remain cut off and so does the power supply,” the residents said.
In Dooru-Verinag area of the district, people had similar complaints. “Here, even the main roads have not been cleared properly, leave alone the villages. If it snows again, these villages are going to remain cut off for weeks because we don’t see snow being cleared any time soon,” the residents of main town Verinag said.
They said that roads like Kokagund link road, Takidar Mohalla road, Bhagwanpora road, Eidgah road and others remained buried under the snow.
In Bijbehara town, where the snow clearance is mostly entrusted to the Mechanical Engineering Department (MED), it is the Municipal Committee which did some work in their limited capacity.
“We have been trying to contact the MED officials but they are not answering any calls. We are getting the clearance done by the Municipal Committee and it might take some time,” an official handling one of the helpline numbers provided by the administration told Kashmir Reader.
This reporter also tried to call the Executive Engineer of MED, Muhammad Ismail, but no one answered the repeated calls made on his number.
The official in charge of disaster management in the district, ADDC Ghulam Hassan Sheikh, refused to comment on the situation and said that he was yet to receive feedback from his officials on the ground.
“I will be in a position to comment only after I get feedback from my officials,” Sheikh said.

Suhail A Shah