The daily wage workers of the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) have hit upon a novel idea to press for their outstanding salary dues - Gandhigiri.

Miffed over non-payment for January and February, they have communicated to the civic body that they would play Holi with officials at the PMC headquarters at the Maurya Lok complex if they are not paid their dues by March 10.

The Patna Nagar Nigam Staff Union chairperson, Chandra Prakash Singh, said it was unfair that the municipal corporation did not pay salaries to the daily wagers on time even though they did a commendable job to keep the city clean during Prakash Utsav and other events.

"By smearing colours on PMC officials on March 11, we will remind them that Holi is just a few days ahead and poor labourers, too, have the right to celebrate it," he said.

PMC commissioner Abhishek Singh, however, said most daily wagers had received their salaries in the past two months and there might be some circles left out.

"As per my information, daily wage earners have been given their salaries in all the circles. There might be one circle in which salaries might not have been given and that too would be given very soon," said Abhishek.

He said the union was unnecessarily creating an issue. "Around 40 days ago, we increased the daily wages of the labourers from Rs 250 to Rs 300. We have met almost all the demands of the union. They don't have any issue left and they might be politically motivated because of which they have resorted to such kind of a move," said Singh.

The union is also agitated by the PMC's decision of engaging some private firms in revenue collection duty.

"We had suggested to the corporation that we can be used for the revenue collection duty. We could have pointed out some loopholes in the process as well but the corporation has also not taken care of this demand," added Singh.

Privatisation of revenue collection will be one of the agendas of the standing committee meeting of the PMC that is scheduled to be held on Saturday.

"Efforts are on to assign the task of revenue collection to private firms as the performance of PMC's tax collectors is not up to the mark. As a result, the quality of service PMC provides to the citizens has also dropped, owing to the acute funds crunch. Our bid is to change things for the better. However, the final decision as to whether some private agency will be involved in the revenue collection or not would be taken only after the standing committee's approval. After the standing committee's approval, the PMC board's nod will be required to implement the plan," said a PMC official on condition of anonymity.

Among the other agendas that will be discussed in Saturday's standing committee's meeting include door-to-door garbage collection.

The standing committee meeting will be held on Saturday and Monday, while PMC's board meeting will be held at the Bankipore circle office on March 7 in which this year's PMC's proposed budget will be discussed.