Reviews winter, election preparedness in Ganderbal
Ganderbal, November 20:
Advisor to Lieutenant Governor, Baseer Ahmad Khan, today exhorted upon the concerned officers that the snow clearance plan during winters should be effective and result oriented so that people may not suffer during the snowing days.
Advisor make these remarks during a meeting chaired at Conference Hall Mini Secretariat Ganderbal to review the winter preparedness and election preparations in the district.
Divisional Commissioner Kashmir, P.K Pole, IGP Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner (DC) Ganderbal, Shafqat Iqbal, SSP Ganderbal, Khalil Poswal, ADC, ACR, SE PDD, Executive Engineers of various engineering wings and other concerned attended the meeting.
The DC briefed the Advisor about the arrangements put in place to combat any contingency during winters through a powerpoint presentation.
The DC informed the meeting that adequate stock of essential commodities is already dumped at the identified places in the district besides Snow Clearance plan has been already put in place and required machinery and manpower is also kept in state of readiness.
Advisor also enquired about the availability of sow clearance machines and was informed that 27 machines are available with the Beacon including Snow Cutters, Snow Ploughs, Dossers, Excavators and Wheel Loaders who carry snow clearance operation on SSG road besides Mechanical wings of different departments and Municipal Council carry snow clearance on other roads of the district.
He directed the concerned to ensure that adequate men and machinery is stationed at identified locations like roads leading to hospitals and at other emergency services instead of placing them on district headquarter, so that they can be deployed timely in view of any exigency.
While reviewing the availability of buffer stock of transformers, the DC informed him that 62 transformers are available in the district and requested for more transformers of different capacity so that damaged transformers are replacement within shortest possible time.
Advisor directed SE PDD to strictly adhere to the power schedule and publicize the schedule well in advance so that people do not face any inconvenience on this account besides separate district control room for power shall be established and any snug in power supply due to any technical fault shall be notified well on time involving local committees.
Meanwhile Advisor also reviewed status of election preparations including AMF at polling stations, election training, snow clearance plan on roads leading to polling stations, heating arrangements, security plan printing of ballot papers etc. were also discussed and necessary instructions were passed for smooth, free and fair conduct of elections.
The DC informed the Advisor that all the arrangements for the smooth conduct of District Development Councils (DDC) and Panchayat by-polls have been completed in the district.
He directed the SE PDD to formulate a special plan for power supply at all polling stations and workout the requirement of gen sets at Counting centers, Strong room and polling stations in the district and share the same so that arrangements are put in place in advance.
The Heath department was directed to ensure that adequate medical and para medical staff along with emergency medicines and ambulance is deployed at Distribution/counting centers and asked for conducting Rapid COVID test for employees deployed for election duty.
Regarding election campaigning, Advisor exhorted upon the district administration that campaigning shall be allowed only at identified locations and asked the DC that location shall be notified block wise in consultation with SSP and urged the SSP that security plan shall be chalked out cautiously.
He also emphasized the need for strict adherence to COVID SOPs during election process.
