The moderate to heavy snowfall in Kashmir this winter is expected to replenish water reservoirs across the Valley to help overcome shortage of water for drinking and irrigation purposes during the scorching summer months, officials said on Wednesday. Er Abdul Wahid, chief engineer of the public health engineering department told Greater Kashmir that abundant snow is bliss for Kashmir.
“In 2018 we faced lots of problems due to drought-like situation as there was less precipitation at the fag end of the year, which resulted in shortage of potable water in the summer months when its demand was at its peak,” he said.
“As per the reports assessed from our field staff, most of our feeding reservoirs have been recharged while more snowfall is likely to take place in coming days. This will ensure that in summer there will be no scarcity of drinking water,” Wahid said.
According to the local meteorological department, early snowfall since the month of November last year has “surpassed the amount of precipitation recorded in the corresponding year in these two months”.
In 2018, the drinking water crisis forced inhabitants of many localities to hit streets in protest. But the PHE chief engineer Wahid said “this year such a situation may not arise”.
The irrigation department, which provides irrigation water for paddy fields spread over 10,000 hectare farm land across Kashmir, is happy with the snowfall.
Chief engineer of the irrigation and flood control department, Ashok Kumar, said that snowfall is good for the economy of Kashmir.
“Last year, our department had to issue advisory against sowing of paddy crop due to non-availability of irrigation water at various places, but this year there won’t be any such problem,” he said.
He said that early snowfall has ensured refilling of rivers and their tributaries which act as a major supplier of irrigation water to the farms.
Meanwhile, chairman of all-Kashmir fruit growers-cum-dealers union, Bashir Ahmad Basheer, said snowfall is good for the horticulture sector as it would ensure adequate irrigation facilities during summer months when the plants require water for growth and fruit-bearing.