Heaps of garbage lie on one side of the waterlogged Daldali Road in the civic body’s Bankipore circle on Thursday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

When the Nitish Kumar-led government had taken over from the RJD in 2005, its ministers pledged to turn Patna into Paris. Seven years on, the promises seem to be rotting in the heaps of garbage and overflowing Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) drains all around the city.

PMC — the civic body responsible for delivering basic services like sanitation, drainage and sewerage systems, water supply, street lights, maintenance of parks and public facilities, solid waste management, construction and upkeep of arterial roads in the colonies and regulating building construction in the city — has failed on almost every front.

A senior civic body officer said: “Nobody takes the PMC seriously, not even its employees when it comes to deliver the works. But it is definitely treated as goldmine by most staffers. It has not been able to deliver quality services to the people, it has lacked the willpower and efficiency to do so. Perhaps the government too realises it and therefore does not let PMC commissioners stay for long and transfers them frequently.”

Since its merger with Patna Regional Development Authority in February 2007, ten IAS officials have taken charge as commissioners and six of them left without completing even six months in office. Sources said that the frequent transfers of babus have severely hampered various development works and projects proposed by the civic body.

The PMC officials, however, blame the lack of quality service on the shortage of funds, manpower and resources, mostly equipment.

The corporation’s own resource base is quite low and over the past few years it has been able to generate revenue of barely Rs 50-60 crore. While the revenue expenditure has been increasing at the rate of 12 per cent per annum, PMC’s establishment cost, including planned and non-planned heads, is highest at 75 per cent. The civic body is also irregular in paying off its debts that range around Rs 44.5 crore.

PMC commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pal accepted that the civic body has not been able to increase its revenue collection substantially but claimed to have expedited the process since he took charge.

“In the last financial year, we collected about 90 per cent of the total holding tax, which was a record of sorts. But since the number of holdings was very low, the revenue collected was not substantial. We are now trying to identify all the holdings afresh, an exercise that has not happened in the past 20 years,” said Pal.

But more than the resources and manpower, the crisis is in the work culture, said officials. “I have no qualms in admitting that PMC employees have themselves made a mess of this body. I am trying to change that. But it will not change overnight,” said Pal.