Omar government starts functioning from hotel

The state administration has started function from a makeshift civil secretariat at Hari Niwas hotel in Srinagar. It will act as a central point in coordinating efforts for relief operations.

The state administration has started function from a makeshift civil secretariat at Hari Niwas hotel in Srinagar. It will act as a central point in coordinating efforts for relief operations.

The decision for makeshift arrangements was made by the chief minister Omar Abdullah as the civil secretariat was submerged. The officials were operating on their own and most of them were cut off from their colleagues.

On the first day of the makeshift civil secretariat on Saturday, 30 officials, all head of departments and commissioner/secretaries, were present at the makeshift secretariats.

The chief minister attended the first meeting at 9am. He was briefed about the efforts being taken to provide relief to people in the state. The CM will hold two meeting daily, first at 9am and then at 7pm, which is also being attended by GoC 16 corps.

Meanwhile, most of the employees are still either marooned. The employees from the Jammu region, who were working at civil secretariat and other departments, have left for their homes.

The police stations that are still flooded have been shifted to safer places in makeshift arrangements. A number of police personnel were being air lifted from Jammu division. The police control Srinagar had also started operations.

All officials have been directed to remain on the duty for 24 hours. However, absence of the adequate mobile service was affecting the working.

It is still uncertain when will the state government start functioning in a proper manner. One of the major concerns for departments was that almost all files had been damaged and there was no back up of as most of them were manual files.