Fruits of power are difficult to log out of - so the Patna Municipal Corporation has found.

The civic body has sent notices to 35 former ward councillors who were given laptops for official work but have failed to return them after their tenures came to an end.

Civic body commissioner Abhishek Singh said the notices have been sent on Saturday after the new councillors - many of them first-timers - complained of not having the gadgets.

Sources in the civic body said altogether 100 laptops were purchased for the ward councillors and PMC officials at a cost of Rs 50 lakh during the tenure of former municipal commissioner Jai Singh. Total 72 laptops were distributed among the councillors and the rest among the PMC officials.

"The ward councillors were provided laptops for work. Special software had been installed on their laptops in which information related to PMC programmes was present. The councillors were provided the gadgets only for their tenure," said Abhishek Singh. "We have given them seven days to return the laptops. Action would be taken if they fail to return the gadgets."

He refused to divulge details of the former councillors to whom notices have been sent but a source said former mayor Afzal Imam and former ward No. 20 councillor Vinod Kumar are among them.

"Both Afzal and Vinod fielded their wives in this election and they have won the election. But the former councillors, according to norms, are supposed to deposit their laptops to the corporation as the gadgets had been allotted in their names. The wives - councillors now - would be given the laptops later," said the source. "There are many former councillors too whose spouses have failed to retain their seats but the representatives have not yet deposited their laptops."

Afzal Imam said the corporation had not set any guideline for returning the laptops when it was distributed among the councillors. "I remember the urban development department had used its own funds to distribute the laptops to female ward councillors, while the PMC had provided laptops to male councillors with its fund," he claimed. "There was no such guideline on returning the laptops. But so far as I am concerned, I don't need to return the gadget because my wife Mehjabeen (Shaheen) has become a councillor now. As she would have gotten a new laptop anyway, I thought there was no need of returning my laptop."

Vinod sang the same tune, even as PMC officials fear many former councillors would refuse to return the laptops, claiming they have been damaged.

The first-time councillors, however, said it was extremely unethical on part of the former representatives who have failed to return the laptops they were given for official work.

"You very well understand the importance of a laptop these days," said ward No. 5 councillor Dipa Rani Khan. "You can feed so much information on the gadget. The new councillors, including me, obviously need a laptop for ward work."