Many wait outside base camp as govt streamlines relief

Outside the relief base camp set up by the state government at the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneur Development Institute (JKEDI) here, Afroza (58) is waiting for a bag of rice since morning, but her wait, like her hunger, does not seem to come to an end.
Afroza, like many other women from different areas of Srinagar, the summer capital of the state, was told to approach their respective deputy commissioner to seek any assistance, saying the government would not provide any relief to any one individually.
"My family is putting up on the roadside as my house is still submerged. We are dying of hunger. We have not been given anything. No blankets or food. We have knocked at every door, but to no avail," Afroza, a resident of Batamaloo area of the city, said.

"We met the DC and he gave us a letter, but these people here are not allowing us to get inside and take the relief," she said.
The state government set up the camp for receiving truckloads of relief from other parts of the country. Whatever comes to the Valley in the name of the flood relief is dumped here and then distributed to different areas on the basis of the need of the people in those areas.
"We set up this camp on September 17 and first we used to provide relief materials to anyone who had the recommendation from any concerned official of the district like a DC, or a tehsildar or a station house officer of any police station or even local mosque committees.

"But as there was a huge rush of the people seeking relief, the government decided to streamline the process of its distribution and henceforth it will be distributed to the respective DC's only and then through tehsildars to the affected people," G M Dar, additional deputy commissioner, Srinagar, one of the officers who monitor the relief at the camp, told PTI.
Dar said from today the relief was not being given to the people at the individual level or through any organisation.