Numbers being changed in riot camp

AHMEDABAD: It is an intense number game that is being played between the Ahmedabad district administration and organisers of various riot relief camps in the city.
The administration is blaming the organisers of fudging figures to get more grants and not allowing the officials to make a proper count to ascertain the exact number of persons still living in these camps.
As a result there are two sets of figures about number of people huddled in 20 relief camps in Ahmedabad - one by the organisers (88,000) and one by the government agencies (27,000). Government sources even allege that in certain cases camp organisers are offering people money to come for the head-count during verification by district officials.
"On Wednesday, one of our team was gheraoed and prevented from conducting verification survey in Char Toda Kabrastan camp," says Ashok Mehta, deputy collector. According to him, camp organisers refused to co-operate with the survey teams to ascertain the number of people living in the camp. "Organisers also refused to counter-sign verification report prepared by us," Mehta said.
The camp organisers have claimed a strength of 2,000, but district officials found far less people after verifying it four times. Mehta added that on May 29 the total number of camp inmates were 346 which decreased to 185 on May 31. Again on June 5, it dropped to 112, while it again increased to 666 on June 6.
"There are less number of people living in these relief camps than what is made out. There are some vested interests who want to inflate figures for various reasons," says district collector K Srinivas. He added that despite giving 24-hour notice to camp organisers for verification, there was no co-operation from the other side. "Officially, there are 27,000 people living in around 20 camps in the city, but actually the number could be much less," Srinivas added.
The district administration has also decided to check the accounts maintained by organisers. Sources in the district collectorate also pointed out that some of the organisers are deliberately trying to avoid verification to avail government''s cash assistance on fudged numbers.
The state government till now has disbursed Rs 3.25 crore as administrative expenses at the rate of Rs 7 per head since relief camps opened in the aftermath of riots, besides Rs 25 per person worth of ration allocated by the government.
"Is it possible to count each riot-affected person residing in these camps. Everybody has some work to attend. How can everyone remain present when district officials visit the camp," said Mohsin Kadri, chief organiser of the Shah-e-Alam relief camp.
Contradicting district collectorate''s figure, he said there are 32 relief camps in Ahmedabad accommodating over 88,000 riot-affected people. "We at Shah-e-Alam are getting government''s relief assistance for 7,324 people, but actually there 10,500 people living in our camp," added Kadri, saying that he will be more than happy to hand over relief camps to government. Camps Organisers'' figure Govt''s figure
Char Toda Kabrastan 3000 112
Shah-E-Alam 7324 1336
Sundaramnagar 3400 626
Sanklitnagar 1827 558
Sonal Cinema 2124 784
Vatva Dargah 832 229