Divisional Commissioner Kashmir P K Pole assures preparedness for chilling winter

Divisional Commissioner Kashmir P K Pole in an exclusive interview to ETV Bharat talked about winter preparedness and other public issues. He said that tourism sector has seen significant spike of tourists from across the country as major destinations across the world are closed due to Covid restrictions.

Srinagar:The people in the Valley during winter are grappled with power outages, blockage of road connectivity due to snowfalls, shortage of drinking water due to freezing cold. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has devoured people of normal life and hit the education of children. Public Health experts fear that if people don't follow SOPs the virus will again spread rapidly in the region.

Explaining measures taken by the administration, Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, Pandurang K Police told ETV Bharat that the administration has made prior arrangements to deal with electricity crises and snowfall. He said that compared to previous years, the citizens had electricity during snowfall and this season adequate arrangements have been made to deal with electricity outages as well.

Pole said for snowfall clearance, the administration has brought in modern machinery and equipment and all concerned departments have been alerted to deal with the situation during the winter snowfall.

He said that tourism sector has seen significant spike of tourists from across the country as major destinations across the world are closed due to Covid restrictions.

Divisional Commissioner said that more than one lakh tourists have visited the picturesque destinations in Kashmir in the month of October, and the administration is ensuring that the visitors follow all Covid SOPs during their visit.

Pole, however, said that the education sector will see limited restriction due to fear of Covid spread among the kids and the tuition centers during winter will deliver online education to the students.

About increasing security personnel and barricades in Srinagar city and other towns, he said that it has been done to ensure safety of people as many innocent civilians were killed by militants in the last two months.

On Hyderpora civilian killings, the Divisional Commissioner said that Lieutenant Governor has ordered a magisterial probe into the incident and all those found involved will be dealt severely as per law.

He said that to curb pollution and address the climate change people should not burn the foliage of trees but instead should decompose it.