J&K gets ready to assess damage

People cross the damaged Srinagar-Jammu National Highway, the only road that connects Kashmir with the rest of the country, near Srinagar on Tuesday.Photo: Nissar Ahmad

As floodwaters recede in Jammu and Kashmir, the State government is gearing up to the challenge of assessing the damage to infrastructure.

The government asked the divisional commissioners on Monday to collate information on the damage.

“We have sent out instructions to district authorities to assess the damage to infrastructure and report back soon,” an official of the State Relief and Rehabilitation Department told The Hindu .

Big-ticket infrastructure projects may feel the impact of the flood. The biggest of them is the 345-km Jammu-Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla Railway Line being built by the Indian Railways at a projected cost of $13 billion. The railway line, declared a project of national importance, was slated to be operational by 2016. Another ambitious project, part of the railway line, is the Chenab river bridge in Kauri, set to be the tallest in the world at 359 metres. Efforts to reach out to the stranded population continued on Tuesday. Air India made arrangements to fly 21 inflatable boats from New York to Srinagar free of cost.