Nuwakot/May 6, Badhi rahat paune aash ma Tupche ra Chaughada ga-bi-sa ka pidit le galat bibaran dina thaleko khulasa. Well-connected and opportunistic individuals have come up with novel ideas to accumulate more relief meant for quake-victims in Chaughada and Tupche VDCs in Nuwakot district. Around 1,133 households were recorded in Chaughada VDC during a sanitation campaign carried out in the area before the earthquake. But when the local administration started to provide Rs 7,000 including food provisions to each family victimised by the earthquake, the number of households in the VDC had suddenly increased to 1,386. The number of households in the village increased as some people provided false data regarding the number of people in their families just to get more relief aid and materials. It has been learnt that earthquake victims in 122 wards of 61 VDCs in the district have already received relief materials and compensation till Monday.

“People who belong to the same family—such as brothers and sisters—and who share a common kitchen have wrongly mentioned that they have separated and have set up a different household just to get more relief aid and materials,” said a local teacher Ram Prasad Lamichanne, who was involved in collecting data of quake victims. Many in Tupche VDC are providing false data regarding the number of people in their families, while members of village committees involved in relief distribution work are not paying much attention to this phenomenon, he said. After the village committee started to distribute relief materials to earthquake victims, the number of households increased by up to 20 per cent in Tupche VDC alone. District Development Officer Rajendra Bahadur KC said the members of the committee involved in the distribution of relief materials should be very alert to discourage the trend of people giving false information about the size of their families and falsifying other crucial information.