Barely a day after the announcement that a field survey was on in the city to identify the flood relief beneficiaries, GHMC officials have performed an about-turn and claimed that no instructions have been issued by the government to conduct such survey.
There are no instructions nor any direction for the field survey to be undertaken to identify the flood victims for the disbursement of flood relief amount, a top functionary in GHMC informed the media. Government orders specifying modalities for such survey are awaited, he said on Tuesday.
On Monday, when people started gathering in huge numbers at the Mee Seva centres, a statement came in the name of GHMC Commissioner D.S.Lokesh Kumar asking the flood victims not to come to the Mee Seva Centres for the relief amount. GHMC teams are collecting the details from the field and once they along with Aadhaar numbers are verified, the amount will be directly remitted into respective accounts, the statement sought to assure.
The relief amount of ₹10,000 was announced by the government for households affected by the devastating October floods.
The amount was initially disbursed in cash by the GHMC and Revenue officials who went from door-to-door distributing the relief. However, the initiative ended in a fiasco, as several genuine victims complained non-receipt of the relief, and allegations abounded about swindling of the funds by officials and politicians, and disbursement to families unaffected by the floods.
Stung by the criticism, government has shifted the distribution to online through Mee Seva Centres, which continued even after notification for GHMC elections. The relief was deposited directly into the accounts of the persons who approached the centre, upon verification of Aadhaar ids and ration cards. Even there, the distribution was not fair, as no attempt was made to check the genuineness of the claims.
The distribution was put paid to temporarily, after the State Election Commission issued orders terming it violation of model code of conduct. During his poll campaign, Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao had assured people that the relief distribution would continue immediately after the elections, believing which scores of people thronged Mee Seva centres in various localities of the city on Monday.
They were a disappointed lot, as government issued orders shutting the centres for the day, and GHMC Commissioner issued the statement about field survey.