Patna was never as spick and span as during Prakash Utsav. 

Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) workers and employees of a private agency, toiled day and night to ensure Patna was dirt-free and devotees coming from the world over went back with a good image of the city. 

If PMC officials are to be believed, the makeover on the sanitation front was possible because the urban development and housing department provided separate funds for engaging additional labour and buying sanitation-related instruments, besides providing extra manpower to supervise cleanliness.

Municipal commissioner Abhishek Singh said the urban development and housing department had provided a separate Rs 4.5 crore fund for Prakash Utsav. 

“With this fund, the PMC engaged additional labour and bought sanitation equipment,” Singh said. “PMC has around 3,500 sanitation staff but during Prakash Utsav, we had hired 800 more personnel. Besides, we engaged a private agency which involved around 850 people in sanitation work. So we had 1,650 additional people ensuring sanitation. We got various areas cleaned in 2-3 shifts, which was not the case earlier because of manpower shortage. We also bought 400 storage containers (to dump garbage) of 1.1 cubic metre capacity and another 50 bins of 2.5 cubic metre capacity apart from decorative bins made of steel. All these bins have been installed at various nooks and corners. Also, road sweeping machines were brought from other urban local bodies.”

The biggest help from the department was that it provided additional city managers and supervisors, who were given the responsibility of supervising cleanliness work. 

“The city managers and supervisors were regularly in touch with top PMC officials,” Singh said. “In case of negligence on anyone’s part, they were reporting it. The city managers were supervising cleanliness work by both PMC and private agency workers. Around Rs 1.5 lakh fine was slapped on private agency because of some negligence.”

“The city managers and supervisors were a major help,” said Vishal Anand, executive officer of PMC’s New Capital circle.

“Almost half of Patna falls in my circle, but I have only one city manager and one chief sanitary officer. This workforce is not enough to supervise cleanliness work in my circle. It will be good if we are provided more city managers for supervising cleanliness work and additional labour so that we can get our areas cleaned in 2-3 shifts.” 

To ensure the city remains neat and tidy like this, the PMC is going to put up a proposal before the department next week in which it will ask for extra funds and  for providing city managers.

The civic body will also put a proposal in the standing committee meeting under which punitive action will be fixed against residents if found dumping garbage anywhere at will. “We are going to put up this proposal in the standing committee meeting to be held on January 10,” Singh said.

Bonus for workers

PMC mayor Afzal Imam said a proposal will be put in the January 10 standing committee meeting to provide bonus to sanitation staff who did well in cleanliness work during Prakash Utsav.