Patna: Residents can raise issues in their wards directly with the civic body if the Patna Municipal Corporation's proposal for election to ward committees goes to plan.

The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) in a meeting on Tuesday decided to elect ward committee members instead of nominating them.

A ward committee acts like the local board of a particular ward, deciding on the work to be undertaken and proposals to be sent. A councillor heads six-seven ward committees. As of now, members to these committees were nominated after the councillor elections.

After the last councillor elections, members of the ward committees had not been nominated. If the urban development and housing department approves the PMC proposal, elections will be held to pick the members.

PMC commissioner Abhishek Singh said: "It was decided on Tuesday at the standing committee meeting that the ward committees will be elected according to the Bihar Municipal Act, 2007. First, elections to the area sabhas will be conducted. Those elected will become members of the ward committee."

The area sabha members will be drawn from among the residents in a particular ward. Any person can fight the election. Singh added: "The standing committee's decision is not final. We will send the proposal to the urban development and housing department for final nod. "The ward committee acts as a board for a ward. Right now, the PMC board looks after all the wards directly. The elected ward committee will take up that responsibility. Apart from monitoring every scheme in a ward, the committees of four to 10 members depending on the ward's size will select beneficiaries and look after sanitation and every other issue in the ward," the commissioner said.

Among the other decisions the standing committee took on Tuesday was issuing a showcause notice to 15 former ward councillors for failing to hand over their official laptops after the end of their term.

"Laptops are provided to ward councillors to do their job efficiently but 15 former councillors have not yet returned their laptops. For this, the new councillors have not been given the gadgets. Two of the 15 councillors have also died," said a member of the PMC standing committee.

The standing committee also decided to send proposals to fill vacancies for third- and fourth-grade employees in the civic body. "We have 177 people working against 784 sanctioned posts for Grade III employees. Also, 189 people are working against 592 sanctioned posts for Grade IV. We have heavy manpower crunch to look after various works in the PMC too. We will send a proposal to the urban development and housing department to fill the posts," the standing committee member said.

A decision taken was to extend services of the assistant executive officer working under the Swachh Bharat Mission and data entry officer under Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation.