Bihar Government officials said they needed to supplement the deployment of thousands of Government employees with sophisticated technologies to speed up the monitoring of feedback from the spots, currently dependent on intermittent telephone updates and reports submitted by District Magistrates.

The State Disaster Management Department has deployed six teams of “mobile inspectors”, who tour the various relief camps in the five flood-hit districts incognito and take photographs of the food being served, sanitary conditions and presence of Government officials at the camps at any given time.

Disaster Management Principal Secretary RK Singh told The Indian Express: “Just when a mobile inspector, who can pass off as a commoner, pretends to talk to someone on his mobile phone, he is actually clicking pictures of the unsatisfactory status of a camp”.

There is a proper format loaded in the GPRS-enabled mobile phone to fill in the correct number of working toilets, estimated number of relief-seekers, types of food being served and related queries, he said. Singh and Additional Commissioner Pratyay Amrit promptly receive an e-mail from the spot and take it up with the DM concerned for fast redressal of the problem. Amrit said: “A DM, at times, is surprised at our fast feedback”.

Amrit said the mobile inspectors had been instructed to concentrate on relief camps amidst villages. The government has been running 324 relief camps, feeding over 3.5 lakh people everyday. The Government has already engaged IBM to start preparing a record of the missing by visiting camps and a disaster management site has also been created for updates on rescue and relief.

Lalu had on Tuesday mocked the Bihar CM’s technical background claiming that they were unable to work together since,” Nitish is an engineer and I am a politician”.