The councillors’ meeting in progress in Patna on Friday. Picture by Nagendra Kumar Singh

Patna, July 15: Agitated ward councillors held a meeting today taking a strong exception to Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) commissioner’s recent decision to turn down various proposals approved by the empowered standing committee. The meeting was organised to discuss future course of action.

The councillors said they felt helpless and outraged because of the attitude of senior PMC officials.

The councillors, alleging even Rs 15 lakh was not provided in all wards of the city according to the plan, decided to set a deadline for all pending public interest projects during the next corporation board meeting on July 20 after which they have threatened to hit the streets if the projects are not completed on time.

“We recently passed the proposal to install 100 streetlights in all 72 wards of the corporation and five extra sanitation workers in the wards to facilitate better garbage disposal. The proposals, however, were turned down by the commissioner without any valid reason. If he ignores the board and standing committee’s plans like this, it is unacceptable,” mayor Afzal Imam told The Telegraph on the sidelines of the meeting.

He said that according to the Bihar Municipal Act, it was binding on the commissioner to follow proposals passed by the board or standing committee, but in reality, it never happened. “Most of the times, the commissioner even refuses to attend meetings citing other engagements. In that case, what is the use of having representatives chosen by people in the civic body if their decisions or opinions hold no value?” Imam said.

He said he would hit the streets if councillors were ready to rally behind him to get PMC more empowered. The councillors vowed full support and said they were ready to sit on dharna even at Jantar Mantar in Delhi to draw the central government’s attention on the pathetic state of affairs in urban local bodies in the state.

“Most of the proposals passed by the board and the committee never get implemented because of the high-handedness of the officials who do not take these plans seriously and work according to their own scheme of things. It has been four years since we got elected and less than 10 months are left for next PMC elections. However, very little work has been completed in our wards. How would we face the voters?” said Baleshwar Pathak, a ward councillor.

Mukesh Kumar, who represents a ward in New Capital circle, said councillors should take a concrete decision so that officials value the democratic ways of corporation functioning and demanded that a separate clause be included in the Municipal Act, which empowers councillors to elect commissioner from among the probables.