Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) has been unable to execute even half of the schemes envisaged by its annual budget for the 2015-16 fiscal.

No work has been done on several ambitious schemes, including amenities for women, augmentation of water-supply network, solid waste management and maintenance of parks among others over the past six months.

PMC sources attributed the reason behind poor progress in civic works to instability at the top level such as removal of the mayor and the tussle between the ward councillors.

"Sanitation and water-supply are fundamental civic works but it is quite shameful that not a single positive step has been taken on this front over the past six months. Similar has been the condition with regard to door-to-door collection of waste. Such a situation has prevailed basically because of ignorance of the state government as well as former mayor Afzal Imam," said Vinay Kumar Pappu, the former deputy mayor at PMC.

The municipal budget for the current fiscal passed in a special meeting of the PMC board held on March 30 pegged the surplus at Rs 21 crore and it laid focus on solid waste management, construction and repair of roads and street lights among others. One of the reasons behind the poor progress in civic works has been attributed to irregular meetings of the PMC board. Not even half-a-dozen meetings of the board have been held over the past six months.

"All big schemes envisaged by the municipal budget need to be approved by the board before final execution. However, the meetings of the board have not been held regularly over the past few months, which has been the primary reason behind the schemes not been executed," said a senior PMC official.

Former mayor Imam, too, admitted slackness in implementation of schemes envisaged by the municipal budget for the current fiscal and passed the blame on the officials.

"It is true that only routine works like removal of garbage from the streets have been done over the past six months. However, there are a number of schemes, which have already been approved by the PMC board but the officials are not executing them. For instance, approval has already been given for construction of urinals in the city but no progress has been made in this regard over more than a year. There are more than a dozen such schemes, which are lying idle because of non-execution by the officers," said Imam.

This is not for the first time that provisions of the municipal budget are not getting executed. It has in fact become a frequent affair at PMC. For instance, allocation of Rs 5 crore for augmenting the traffic system was made in the budget for the 2013-14 fiscal but not a single penny was spent under the respective heads till date. Funds to the tune of Rs 45 lakh were kept aside for providing amenities to women for the last fiscal (2014-15) as well but no such facilities can be seen in the city till date.