Jammu & Kashmir floods: No help at help desks

Bengaluru: Even when more than 650 tourists from Karnataka were stranded in flood- hit Jammu and Kashmir, the Karnataka state disaster management authority operated its call center located at the Multi Story building (MS building) with just three staff. That too these were outsourced staff members with little knowledge of the crisis.

According to friends and relatives of those stranded at J&K, who visited the call center after 7pm on Tuesday evening, they found just three staffers, who had been hired from a human resources outsourcing agency. "They were friendly and cooperative. But we found that they lacked expertise in handling critical situations like floods and stranded people. Not even a single officer was present in the office," said Mr. Kamalaksh (name changed) two of whose friends were stranded at Srinagar.

According to sources at the revenue department under which this cell is operating, the department didn't do anything extra except sending two officials to Srinagar to coordinate with those who were stranded. "There were a flood of calls till 10pm from panicked relatives and friends.

The Department should have deputed a few senior officials to monitor the call center operations. Call center staff were forced to get in touch with officials every time they got a distress call.

As call center staff didn't contact the Srinagar help desk after evening, information was updated only on Wednesday morning after 10.30 am. This is just one example of how the state government took the Srinagar floods casually," he explained.