A troubled legacy and a challenging future await IAS officer Jai Singh when he takes charge as the new municipal commissioner at Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) on April 1.

With his appointment, the civic body would see its third executive chief in a period of two months.

The 2007-batch IAS officer, who was serving as the joint secretary at the urban development and housing department, was appointed as the city's municipal commissioner through a government notification issued on Thursday evening.

Talking to The Telegraph on Friday, Singh claimed that he was on leave at present and would resume duty on April 1. The IAS officer is all set to face Herculean tasks, which have led to the complete collapse of the work environment at the already troubled civic body in the past few months.

"My primary focus would be to eradicate the bottlenecks in the smooth discharge of civic services to the residents. I have still not taken the charge but based on my basic knowledge of PMC, I would focus on the pending projects and the measures to streamline the civic services in the initial few days," said Singh.

Though the civic body annual budget for the 2015-16 fiscal would be made effective on the day Singh takes charge, he would have a huge list of other long-pending tasks to complete. Sources claimed that the biggest task before Singh would be to expedite the drainage cleaning to prevent waterlogging in the city during monsoon. Though the cleaning work is scheduled to commence by February 15 every year, it has hardly started in most city areas. "Drainage cleaning would be one of my priority areas," said Singh.

Singh also claimed that he would take steps to ensure unhindered approval of building plans and maps for new construction activities in the municipal area. "The new building byelaws was notified in January and the urban development and housing department also issued a missive to all urban local bodies on February 9 to approve the building maps according to new byelaws. I would ensure that the map approval process goes on smoothly," said Singh.

Sources claimed that the purpose of expediting civic services for suspending IAS officer Kuldip Narayan from the post of municipal commissioner on December 12 last year and deputing Shrishat Kapil Ashok as the new commissioner by December 15 was never fulfilled.

"Shrishat never took much interest in PMC and he mostly used to sit in the office of Bihar State Water Board, where he is the managing director. He hesitated in taking decisions, as he knew he was only the in-charge municipal commissioner. He had seen how things had turned bad for his predecessor (Kuldip). So he did not want to invite any controversy," said Vinay Kumar Pappu, the former deputy mayor.

According to sources, Shrishat has left behind a number of pending schemes and projects for his successor. Apart from drainage cleaning work, making progress in the much-delayed Patna solid waste management project under Jawaharlal Nehru Urban Renewal Mission would be another challenge for Singh.

Not a single equipment has been procured under the waste management project sanctioned by the Centre in 2007. Funds to the tune of Rs 23.09 crore for this project released by the urban development and housing department in January 2008 are lying idle because of the civic body's failure in executing the project. As a result, PMC is faced with dearth of equipment used to cart away garbage and door-to-door collection of waste.