Flood-affected residents being rescued in Srinagar. (AFP)
After undertaking rescue operation in the flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) is now focusing on relief operations and is deploying 'boat hospitals' in water logged areas to provide health care facilities to the stranded people.
"We have changed our role. For the last one week we were undertaking rescue operations but now we have begun doing relief work. We have converted a number of our existing boats to act as floating hospitals or you can call it a 'boat hospital'," NDRF Director General (DG) OP Singh told PTI.
Mr Singh, who has been camping in Srinagar for the past one week, said a team of doctors and paramedics have been deployed on these boats and they are now visiting those areas where people are stuck and need immediate health care.
An NDRF team from Arakkonam in Tamil Nadu has been deployed for this special task.
As the current situation enters into the ninth or tenth day, Mr Singh said, it is important to concentrate on providing health facilities to the people, whether in their marooned homes or relief camps.
"We have been able to give out 34 tons of relief material and food in the affected areas. We are encountering a number of instances where people do not want to be evacuated but they just want rations, milk, water, medicine, clothes, tents and some ready-to-eat meals. We are doing that now," he said.
He is personally manning the make-shift NDRF control room established in the technical area of the Srinagar airport.
Mr Singh also said that close to 40 NDRF boats have suffered "extensive damages" as they had to be manoeuvred in the narrow by-lanes of Kashmir valley.
"About 40 boats have been rendered non-functional. We are left with about 100 boats now but that is not a cause of worry as the Army has dropped in a number of its boats too," he said, adding that a number of areas, still inundated in flood waters, pose a challenge to his 22 teams comprising 50 personnel each.