Mission
Jhelum and Tawi Flood Recovery Project's focus will be in rebuilding damaged public buildings, such as hospitals, schools, higher education buildings, fire stations, and selected block and district offices, and other important public buildings. Restoring and improving the connectivity disrupted by reconstruction of damaged roads and bridges.

 

History
In September 2014, the State of Jammu & Kashmir experienced torrential monsoon rains causing major flooding and landslides. The continuous spell of rains from September 2 – 6, 2014, caused Jhelum and Chenab Rivers as well as many other streams/tributaries to flow above the danger mark. The Jhelum River also breached its banks flooding many low-lying areas inAnantnag, Srinagar and adjoining districts. In many districts, the rainfall exceeded the normal by over 600 per cent. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) records precipitation above 244.4mm as extremely heavy rainfall, and the region received 558mm of rain in the June-September period, as against the normal 477.4 mm. For example, the district of Qazigund recorded over 550 mm of rainfall in 6 days as against a historic normal of 6.2 mm over the same period.Due to the unprecedented heavy rainfall the catchment areas particularly the low lying areas were flooded for more than two weeks. Some areas in urban Srinagar stayed flooded for 28 days. Water levels were as high as 27 feet in many parts of Srinagar. The areas from the main tributaries of river Jhelum vis-à-vis Brenginallah, Vishavnallah, Lidernallah and Sandrannallah started overflowing due to the heavy rainfall causing water levels in Jhelum river to rise. Subsequently, the discharge of the river Suran was 200 thousand cusecs as against an average of 50 thousand cusecs. With the excessive discharge of water, the river Suran affected the basin areas and also took a different course at various locations causing damages to the surrounding villages in the catchment area.Water levels also increased in the rivers of Chenab and Tawi, both of which were flowing above normal levels. Due to the rivers overflowing nearly 20 districts were impacted.

In the aftermath of the devastating floods the Government of India requested assistance from the World Bank and an emergency project figured by the Natural Disaster was started, the Project is named as Jehlum Tawi Flood Recovery Project.

The project will focus on restoring critical infrastructure using international best practice on resilient infrastructure. Given the region’s vulnerability to both floods and earthquakes, the infrastructure will be designed with upgraded resilient features, and will include contingency planning for future disaster events. Therefore, the project aims at both restoring essential services disrupted by the floods and improving the design standard and practices to increase resilience.

Project Development Objective
The project development objective is to support the recovery and increase disaster resilience in Project Areas, and increase the capacity of the Project Implementing Entity to respond promptly and effectively to an eligible crisis or emergency.