The Kashmir Centre for Social and Development Studies (KCSDS), has said the Indian- controlled Kashmir suffered a loss of over 16 billion dollars to infrastructure due to the recent devastating floods

The Region’s Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, described the flood as “the worst in a century” that hit the region during the first week of this month.

‘`Some 2,600 villages and several towns including Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, were badly hit by the flooding.

”Up to now, some areas are still submerged in water, resulting in colossal damage to housing, agriculture, transport and business sectors,’’ Abdullah said.

Abdullah said that the worst hit was the housing sector and other infrastructure projects.

Officials of the region added that around 300 people were killed in the floods, triggered by heavy downpour.

The devastating flood wiped out large portion of both public and private infrastructure as well as business in Srinagar and in three southern districts of Anantnag, Pulwama and Kulgam.

”Loss is too heavy and our preliminary estimates show the region suffered a massive damage to infrastructure and business valued at millions of dollars,’’ Shakeel Qalander, a top industrialist told reporters.

Qalander is member of KCSDS and was a former member of India’s former Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh’s reconstruction program for Jammu and Indian-controlled Kashmir.

KCSDS has experts on the economy, academe, health, engineering and business in its core group.

According to the center, of the 2.5 million houses in Indian- controlled Kashmir as per 2011 census, at least 3 million houses have either been completely or partially damaged.

KCSDS estimates have pegged damage to housing sector at 4.9 billion dollars.

Xinhua