I was thousands of kilometres away in Kutch, Gujarat, when my phone began ringing with emergency calls from Kashmir recently.

Villagers from Kralgam Ledden, Doba Watakaloo, Chalyan Choontinar, and Gogjipather in Charar Sharief, Budgam, were frantic: “Three days have passed, and the snow is still blocking our roads.”

They sent videos of streets buried under four to five feet of snow, children unable to reach tuitions, elderly trapped at home, and families struggling to fetch essentials.

I shared these clips on social media to grab officials’ attention, hoping someone would act, but the silence was deafening.

Snow is a fact of life in Kashmir, but systems to deal with it remain inconsistent. I have spent over a decade arguing that rural employment programmes can be used for snow clearance.

MG-NREGA, now VB-GRAMG under the Viksit Bharat Guarantee for Rozgar and Aajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act 2025, promises work to rural communities, but in practice, snowbound villages remain isolated and idle for days.

The law has passed Parliament and received the President’s assent, but winter exposes the gap between policy and reality.

Before MG-NREGA, government departments in J&K routinely engaged local communities to clear snow from their own villages.........

© Kashmir Observer