Home secretary in Srinagar to coordinate rescue effort

With thousands of people still marooned due to floods in Jammu and Kashmir, Home Secretary Anil Goswami Thursday went to Srinagar to coordinate the relief and rescue operations.

Home ministry officials said a team of officers accompanied the home secretary.

Goswami's visit follows directions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the ministry to immediately depute senior officers from Delhi and other states to coordinate the relief operations with the local administration in Srinagar.

Modi Wednesday chaired a high-level emergency meeting on relief operations in Kashmir and was briefed on the status of operations, especially in Srinagar and the Kashmir valley.

Modi emphasised that immediate attention be given to providing basic necessities like food and water to people severely affected by the calamity.

He also stressed the need for a massive effort to ensure basic hygiene and sanitation in the water-logged areas of Srinagar.

More than 96,000 people have been rescued so far from various parts of flood-hit Jammu and Kashmir by the armed forces and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).

Over four lakh people are still estimated to be marooned in Srinagar.