A Week on, Shimla Struggles to Cope With Record Snowfall

Officials admit that for the past many decades, a meeting to tackle heavy snowfall has become a mere ritual.

As heavy snowfall has eluded Shimla, the erstwhile summer capital of British India, in recent times, the 'snow manual' of the the administration, followed since the Raj, has virtually been lying in cold storage.

Then, suddenly, 83 cm of snow fell on 7 and 8 January.

With the administration's failure to handle its disastrous consequences snowballing into a political controversy and causing local dissent, state authorities are rapidly defreezing the words of wisdom in the book.

Octogenarian local resident Ramesh Sood said:

The inability to restore electricity and water supply – disrupted on 7 January – in most Shimla localities clearly reflects a failure on the part of government.

The electricity to Sood's residence, in Stokes Palace near the Chief Minister's official residence Oakover, was restored only on 11 January, after five days of disruption, but continues to remain erratic. "This (snow) is a wake-up call," he added.

Officials blame the power failure on the uprooting of a large number of snow-laden trees and the damage it caused to nearby electricity poles, lines and transformers.

The Shimla Snow Manual lists the responsibilities and duties of the administration during snowfall, such as the setting up of control rooms, deploying men and machinery to clear roads and pathways, as well as maintaining power and drinking water supplies.

The district administration, before the onset of winter every year, holds a meeting to review measures and assign duties to handle any emergency in case of heavy snow.

Officials admit that for the past many decades, this meeting – called the snow manual meeting – has become a mere ritual.

“Over the years, the intensity of snowfall in Shimla has decreased. So the snow manual has lost its relevance,” said an official who did not wish to be named.

Admitting that the civic body is following the British-framed snow manual, Deputy Mayor Tikender Panwar told IANS that it needs to be reviewed.

Old-timers recalled that for almost two decades, Shimla, which was planned for a maximum population of 16,000 and now supports 2,36,000, has not recorded this kind of heavy snowfall in a single spell.

I still remember the winter of 1990-91 when Shimla got the heaviest snow in a single spell. This time, the intensity of snowfall is quite less compared to the past. However, the hardships are more.

Ramesh Chauhan, Resident

Another resident, Mohit Sood, said the civic body would earlier sprinkle salt on the roads ahead of snowfall, and that helped in the clearing-up process.

Manmohan Singh, director of the Meteorological Office in Shimla, told IANS that 83 cm of snow that fell between January 7 and 8 was the heaviest yet.

As per Met office records, Shimla experienced 62 cm of snow on 12 February 2007, which was the highest on a single day in the past 99 years.

In 2005, there was 94.3 cm of snow in January but it was spread over seven days. In 2004, 96.6 cm of snow fell in the whole of January.

(The article has been slightly edited for length.)