GCC flags need of more responsible and responsive administration; alarms on imminent ecological disaster

STC NEWS DESK
SRINAGAR, JULY 16 (STC): The Group of Concerned Citizens (GCC) J&K has urged the Government to tone up the administrative apparatus making it more responsible and responsive.

In a General Body meeting here , presided over by Khurshid Ahmad Ganai, rtd IAS( Former Advisor to Governor J&K), the Group raised a number of issues of public importance requiring priority attention. These included strengthening rural healthcare to reduce avoidable referrals to tertiary hospitals in Srinagar & Jammu, filling up vacancies of Doctors/Specialists, improving access to Cancer care services, protection of fast receding river JEHLUM and dying ANCHAR lake, besides other threatened water resources, road safety and traffic mgt., etc .

The GCC said, “The carrying capacity of River Jehlum has reduced since 2014, mainly for want of a massive dredging, compounded further by illegal mining, dumping of solid waste and unabated encroachment, over the years.”
The GCC statement further states: “The forgotten flood protection projects deserved to be picked again and pursued, with full force, to reach the project goals. ANCHAR lake is literally dying in absence of any fetters on encroachment. It is long left without any conservation care as if nobody’s responsibility and therefore free-for-all.
The least the Government could do is to notify ANCHAR for care and conservation by Lakes Conservation & Mgt. Authority(LCMA)”.

The GCC also expressed deep concern over recent turn of events which, it said, “Yet again underline the imperatives of restoring statehood to J&K without further delay, in the larger national interest, consistent with orders of the Hon’ble Supreme Court and assurances of the Hon’ble Prime Minister and the Hon’ble Home Minister in and outside of the Parliament.”

The GCC raised alarm over the worsening ecological degradation and called for enactment of stringent environmental protection laws particularly tailored to J&K’s fragile ecosystem, and described ACHHAN Landfill as” an unfolding public health crisis”. Toxic gas emissions from the site are widely feared to have a nexus with rising incidence of Cancer, respiratory diseases, infertility, allergic and other ailments. The Group therefore proposed the Government immediately commission an EXPERT STUDY of emissions from ACHHAN and their impact on public health and hygiene, by the Departments of Social & Preventive Medicine in GMC Srinagar and SKIMS.
(STC)