Two children hungrily ate from a small bowl on the Collectorate premises on Sunday, ignoring their mother's advice that there was not too much food left.

The kids and their mothers are among the 5,000 people - most of them are daily wage earners - who have made the Patna Collectorate their home with their cattle since Saturday morning. Scores of families have fled their homes in Sabbalpur diara on boats after the Ganga's level rose because of discharge from the Indrapuri barrage on the Sone in Rohtas.

The Telegraph spotted Manttu Mahto (30), who lost his 60-year-old mother Shanti Devi in the floods, sitting under asbestos sheds near the registration office counter with his family.

The two children sat nearby eating a sparse meal of pulses and rice. "We came here around 4am on Sunday and whatever we brought with us to eat is already over," said Sheela Devi, adding that the family will not return home until the water recedes.

"We thought the district administration would help us by providing some relief material but till now, nobody has come to see us."

Since late Saturday, the " flood refugees" complained that the district administration did nothing to help them.

"The administration started to shift the people gathered on the Collectorate premises to BN Collegiate Inter School on Ashok Rajpath (around 500m away)," district magistrate Sanjay Kumar Agarwal said.

"They are being shifted with their cattle. They will get properly cooked food as we have decided to run the relief camp for three-four days."

The relief distribution work was to start by Sunday night. Among the people stranded away from their homes are the families of brothers Pramod and Ajay Manjhi. They arrived at the Collectorate by boat on Saturday morning, rowing for about an hour from Sabbalpur, after the swollen Ganga devoured several villages in the riverine area of Patna.

The Manjhis' group of 10, including four children did not leave the boat or offload the valuables and essential items taken from home -fodder for cattle, bedrolls and utensils. "Offloading so many items is quite an ask, so we decided to stay put on the boat," Pramod said on Sunday, claiming his family or the others around had not got any help from the government. The family brought along their four buffaloes on the boat too. There are close to 1,000 cattle on the Collectorate premises.

Manju Devi, one of Pramod's family members, said: "We came here on Saturday morning and till now (around 1pm) the administration has not provided us anything. We brought some supplies but that is not enough to feed every member of the family. So, we have asked the men to bring something from the local market."

The condition of the other families is pretty much the same. The villagers also complained that boatmen charged Rs 200 to ferry each cattle.

Ajit Singh, another villager, complained about not getting drinking water at the Collectorate. "We brought fodder for our cattle," he said. "Are we supposed to eat fodder? The administration has not provided us anything for the past one day."