Several councillors of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) are up in arms against the urban development and housing department's recommendation to dissolve the civic body.

Over 30 ward councillors on Wednesday evening took out a torch procession from Mauryalok Complex to Kargil Chowk. Thereafter, they met former deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi.

'We are protesting against the arbitrary action taken by minister Samrat Choudhary, wherein he has recommended the state government to dissolve the PMC. The charges he has made for dissolving PMC are completely false and he is pursuing his malicious intentions to weaken the civic body,' said deputy mayor Roop Narayan Mehta.

According to sources, the showcause notice served to the councillors by the departmenthas sought explanation from them on issues, including non-execution of Patna solid waste management schemes for the past seven years, non-implementation of decisions taken by the empowered standing committee and PMC board, and non-implementation of funds released to the civic body by the department.

'The department seems to be in utter haste. The showcause notice that I received today is dated December 9 and the department has asked for replying to it by December 12. At least five days should have been given to reply. The department is working with some hidden agenda to deliberately dissolve the PMC by hook or by crook,' said Mehta.

Mayor Afzal Imam and some councillors, however, did much on this issue.

Several other ward councillors alleged that the department is hand-in-glove with the builders' lobby, which wants to weaken the ongoing crackdown on unauthorised construction activities.

'It is being done to weaken the action being taken by the commissioner on illegal construction,' said former deputy mayor Vinay Kumar 'Pappu'.

In case the state government moves ahead with the process of dissolving PMC, it would have to form a committee. Section 69 of the Bihar Municipal Act, 2007, which deals with power of the state government to dissolve municipality, demands the state government to constitute a five-member panel comprising divisional commissioner, chief councillor or mayor of any other municipality of the same class, a chartered accountant, an engineer and an officer of the state government. The committee should then submit its report to the state government within the stipulated timeframe.