KL Report
SRINAGAR
The state home department has proposed raising of two more battalions as part of the J&K Police to take charge for disaster management of the state, top sources told KNS.
“Seeing the devastation caused by the ravaging floods in the state, we have proposed to the union home department raising of two battalions especially for the disaster response,” a senior officer in the state home department told KNS.
Pertinently, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) has 720 personnel at its disposal in Kashmir valley while around 650 SDRF personnel look after the Jammu division. Sources said that 250 SDRF personnel were deputed in Srinagar city to manage the recent floods in Srinagar city while as 15 to 30 SDRF personnel were deputed to different districts for the rescue operations in these devastating floods.
Sources told KNS that SDRF has only 6 boats available with it and all these boats are old and were earlier being used by the civil defense. A senior officer in the police told KNS that Jammu and Kashmir need at least 4 more battalions with at least 4000 strength of forces to cope up the disasters in the state.
“In 2005 we witnessed a major earthquake and now in 2014 we have been devastated by the ravaging floods that killed people and destroyed huge properties. So we need a good strength of SDRF personnel who can cope up with these kind of situations,” another officer working in state home department told KNS.
He said that in addition to the SDRF battalions, at least one company of Armed Battalion in JK police need to be trained for disaster management in both the divisions of the state.
