The Mechanical Engineering Department of the Jammu and Kashmir administration has set up a snow control room in Srinagar to monitor the level of snowfall and respond to any emergency calls in case of a snowstorm.
The snow control room is equipped with the latest machinery along with expert staff to respond to heavy snowfall to solve the problem in a short time and depute machinery all over the city after receiving weather forecast warnings from the administration.
Speaking to ANI, Abdul Rashid Dar, Chief Engineer Mechanical Division Kashmir said, “This control room automatically starts working whenever snowfall starts here. We reinforce the deployment of mankind forces and machines to the required areas after receiving the emergency calls. We try to resolve every issue at the earliest.”
“For now, we have around 11-12 machines to clear snowfall that are installed especially near hospitals, roads to avoid traffic movement, PSUs, etc,” Dar added.
Mudasir Ahmad, Assistant Executive Engineer MED informed that the snow control room starts functioning from November 15 to March 15 every year.
“This snow control room starts working from November 15 to March 15. These machines require a lot of maintenance and we try to address the problems as soon as possible,” Ahmad told ANI.
Pankaj Kaul, incharge of the snow control room, stated that they try to resolve every problem within 1-2 hours and the department has many standby machines for the clearance of snow.
“Whenever we receive any complaint, we try to resolve the problems within 1-2 hours and deploy the machines to clear the snow. We have many standby machines at present,” he added.
This control room is the backbone of the Srinagar city during the snowfall to make roads clear and make movement easier for the public.