J-K floods: Omar says 'we're overwhelmed' by the problem; anger mounts over rescue ops

Anger mounted on Wednesday over the slow pace of rescue operations in Jammu and Kashmir even as chief minister Omar Abdullah said his government was "overwhelmed" by the scale of deadly flooding.

"We have really been overwhelmed. We have been overwhelmed by the scale of the problem," Omar told television reporters adding that he "understood the anger of the people."

The chief minister termed the situation in flood-hit Jammu and Kashmir "serious" but hit out at critics who said his government was not doing enough.

"What can I do. I didn't bring the rain, nor can I stop it. If I could, I would have done that," an angry Omar told ANI.

Meanwhile, an NDRF jawan was attacked by angry locals in Srinagar while few other personnel of the force were heckled while they were rendering relief and rescue operations in the flood-hit areas.

Officials said a National Disaster Response Force trooper received severe injuries on his hand when the locals attacked him

The locals apparently wanted the NDRF men to concentrate on a particular area and when the force personnel decided to go to a different marooned area, the locals attacked them.

"A few incidents of our men being heckled are being witnessed since yesterday in the state," a senior officer said.

Worried by the development, the NDRF and senior home ministry officials have asked the cabinet secretary to devise some mechanism so that troops are kept safe while they render their duty.

Diesel price may be cut for 1st time in 7yrs

 

With Brent crude oil prices dipping below USD 100 per barrel, petrol prices may be cut by Re one a litre and there is also a likelihood of first reduction in diesel rates in seven years.

Petrol and diesel rates are due for revision on September 15 and there is a possibility of reduction in retail prices if benchmark Brent crude continues to stay below USD 100 a barrel mark, official sources said.

This will be the fourth straight reduction in petrol price since last month. Rates were last cut by 1.82 a litre on August 31. Prior to that, petrol price was cut by Rs 1.09 a litre on August 1 and again by Rs 2.18 a litre on August 15.

Sources said there is also likelihood of a reduction in diesel prices, the first in seven years. Diesel prices were last hiked on August 31 by 57 paise in line with the January 2013 decision to raise rates in small doses every month to bridge the difference between retail selling price and cost.

The difference, called under-recovery, had reduced to just 8 paise a litre after the last increase. Diesel currently costs Rs 58.97 per litre in Delhi.

SC reserves order to decide fate of 218 coal blocks

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday reserved its order to decide the fate of 218 coal block allocations held as illegal by it with the Centre advocating their cancellation while allocatees blamed the government for irregularities and demanded setting up of a committee to go into each of the allocation.

The Coal Producers Association, Sponge Iron Manufacturers Association and Independent Power Producers Association of India and some private entities opposed the stand of the Government for not favouring the constitution of any committee to look into consequences of the August 25 judgement.

They deprecated the Centre's stand that "cancellation of coal block allocation is a natural consequence of the judgement" by saying that it would lead to total disaster and ultimate suffering for man on street and rural population, already facing power crisis.

Senior advocates K K Venuogopal, Harish Salve and others submitted that the Centre was projecting itself as an innocent party which itself has misled the apex court on the contentious issue.

However, a bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha said "Government is only articulating its position" and it would "not be a fair way" of dealing with the matter as "screening committee meetings speak for themselves that no procedure was followed".

"The fact of the matter is they (Govt) want to proceed with a clean slate," the bench, also comprising justices M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph said and referred to the submission of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi that cancellation of 218 coal block allocations was the natural consequence of the judgement but retention of 40 coal producing blocks and six ready for operation should be considered.

"Government understands all aspects. Government understands about the darkness. It looks at every corner of the country. Everything is visible to the government. They have full confidence," the bench said before reserving the order. 

The final submission of the day-long hearing came from Rohatgi who said, "we have applied our mind to all types of situation and according to us when there is a mass irregularity the impact would be on everybody and I am not here to say who is wrong and who is not."

"I am for cancellation but only pocket that can be saved is 40 productional blocks and six which are ready for production," he said after which the bench concluded the hearing.

However, before concluding the arguments, the bench said, "it has not examined the decision of allocation but the decision-making process".

"We are not concerned whether You (govt) have done wrong or not by we are concerned with the wrong process," it said adding that "we are not forcing the executive to take a particular line