As many as 758 school buildings across the Jammu division have been declared ‘unsafe’ after the recent incidents of cloudbursts, flash-floods and landslides.
With more than 8,800 schools audited for safety, over 5,500 have been issued safety certificates. of these around 5,200 were deemed safe, while 758 were declared unsafe.
This information was given today in a meeting which the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah chaired to take a comprehensive review of flood relief and restoration measures across Jammu and Kashmir.
Divisional Commissioner Jammu, Ramesh Kumar, presented the situation in the Jammu Division, reporting several human and heavy material losses. He said the floods claimed 150 lives, left 178 people injured, and 33 missing, with Kishtwar recording the highest casualties. Housing losses were severe, with more than 4,200 homes fully damaged and over 8,600 partially damaged, the worst-hit districts being Udhampur and Jammu. Livestock losses stood at 1,455 and crops over 1,300 hectares were damaged.
It was informed that financial assistance exceeding ₹40 crore has been disbursed from the State Disaster Response Fund, with an additional ₹3.35 crore provided from the HCM Relief Fund. Restoration work is underway across sectors, with over 2,700 km of roads and more than half of the damaged bridges already temporarily restored. Permanent restoration of roads and bridges is estimated at nearly ₹893 crore. The power sector was also badly affected, with over 49,000 distribution transformers hit—almost all of which have now been restored. More than 2,000 water supply works were damaged, with around 1,600 temporarily restored, requiring nearly ₹195 crore for permanent restoration.
In public health, 442 water samples tested and over 1,500 health camps were organized, screening nearly 80,000 people. Encouragingly, no warning signs of disease outbreaks have been reported, the Divisional Commissioner said.