BADIN, Sept 14: The survey teams assessing losses caused by the recent rains and consequent floods have been accused by affected people of committing irregularities and collecting stereotype figures of the losses.

Some of the rain victims told this correspondent most of the people whose houses were damaged were not included in the list of the affected people. They said some of the affected people were not at homes when the survey teams arrived in their villages without prior notice.

Many deserving people were also ignored as they could not produce their national identity cards. The authorities had made production of NICs mandatory for entry of their names in the list. In several cases, floods had swept away everything, including NICs.

Abdul Razzaq Khaskheli and other residents of the Umer Khaskheli village near Behdmi, Bhugra Memon Union Council, 40km off here, said the houses of 40 families of the village were submerged and they had lost 15 cattlehead. They said their village was one of the most affected villages of the coastal belt but neither the Tapedar nor the area Nazim had visited the village to conduct the survey.

The villagers said UC Nazim Abdul Rehman Mallah sent councillor Allah Jurio Khaskheli and a non-member of the team, Ameer Mallah, to assess the losses in the area but the councillor did not enter the names of the villagers, whose houses were destroyed, in the list.

They said they were ignored because they were followers of Pir Pagaro and had voted against the area Nazim.

They said they were also denied Zakat fund for construction of their houses as local Zakat chairman Meenhwasay Mallah also supported the Nazim.

The villagers alleged that the Nazim, with a view to referring the names of his favourite people for compensation, was not cooperating with the Tapedar of Behdmi and was compiling figures through non-members of the survey committee.The Tapedar could not be contacted for his version.

Residents of other villagers complained the survey team members did not carry application forms with them while visiting the affected areas.

They said the members did not get signatures of victims on proper forms but on plain papers which were later substituted with new or fake names of those who gave commission to Tapedars.

Many other cases were also reported in which three to eight members of one family received separate application forms for compensation.

Some victims said Tapedars who wanted to report actual number of damaged houses were being threatened and beaten up by henchmen of influential persons who wanted to include fake names in the list.

When contacted, DCO Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah said on Saturday he had also received such complaints.

He said three more teams were dispatched to each taluka to conduct physical verification of the lists being provided by the survey teams. He said the additional teams would have the authority to include names of deserving persons and exclude names of those who had sustained no losses. He said an army monitoring team would also carry out surprise visits of the villages to verify the figures.

Many villagers appealed to the president and the prime minister to conduct the survey through army personnel to ensure transparency in the process.

As many as 115 teams began the survey on Sept 10 which were given one week for completing the task. But the survey completion is likely to be delayed and the losses may not be reported accurately following non-cooperation of Nazims with Tapedars and other members of the teams, and in some cases the lack of coordination between councillors and the rest of the team members. As the government needs the survey results urgently, manipulation in figures cannot be ruled out.