The procedural constraint imposed by the civic body in implementing the garbage management project in Patna is forcing residents to live in inhumane conditions with litter strewn across the city.

Piles of garbage and over-spilling bins coupled with rain on Wednesday left the capital roads stinking.

“There is an overflowing garbage bin in my colony, which has not been cleaned for over a fortnight now. The situation has worsened since the last night because litter is spilling from the garbage piles, making a slush cover on the road. The wet garbage is very risky as people can slip whenever it rains. Moreover, staying indoor is uncomfortable as the stench is highly nauseating,” said Shambhu Rai, a resident of Patliputra.

“These scattered and wet garbage are creating numerous health hazards and inviting all sorts of stray animals, including pigs, dogs, and cattle, to wander around. One cannot walk on the streets because of the filth,” said Boring Road resident Anil Kumar.

Similar conditions are prevailing in most of the localities because the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) is hardly able to cart away 850 metric tonnes of garbage, generated daily in the city using its limited resources.

“We have 20 tractors, three JCB machines and six tippers for carting away garbage from the city. Three contractors collect the garbage from the main roads on tractors and dump it at the landfill site at Ramachak Bairiya area. Our tippers empty the public bins kept on the roads. We aim at clearing the garbage bins two to three times a day,” said Sheshank Shekhar Sharma, the executive officer of the New Capital Circle of PMC.

The new integrated solid waste management project, Patna, envisages 229 tippers, 362 containerised cycle rickshaws and 5,31,455 bins among others, for a spick and span city. The project is apparently stuck in official bottleneck. Despite selection of consortium of Jindal-ITF Limited and MBM-Dallah Waste Management Services for solid waste collection and transportation from 62 wards of Patna in the last week of June, the project is caught in a limbo because the no-objection certificate was not issued by the PMC for the commencement of the work. The remaining 10 wards would be looked after by the PMC.

“The standing committee has refused to issue a no-objection certificate to the firm selected for this project because it claims that it is unaware of the details. We are now going to request Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (BUIDCo) to make a presentation on the project in front of the standing committee so that it can approve it,” said a senior PMC officer.

The board of directors of BUIDCo on June 29 gave its approval for the selection of the consortium of JITF and MBM-Dallah for the integrated solid waste management project.

The consortium would undertake the project on build-operate-transfer mode with a total cost of Rs 110.59 crore under the centrally sponsored Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission scheme.