Accumulated garbage near AN College in Patna. Councillors of the city are worried about the fact that after A2Z Infrastructure Private Limited — the private agency hired by the civic body to cart away garbage — withdrew services because of non-payment of dues, the sanitation work has gone for a toss. They also want to put a number of other projects on fast track. Telegraph picture

Patna, Aug. 31: Fed up with Patna Municipal Corporation’s (PMC) failure to implement civic projects, mayor Afzal Imam has summoned a meeting of the empowered standing committee on September 3 to assess the implementation and rate of progress of several civic schemes.

Imam said: “Ward development work under three different schemes worth Rs 3.5 lakh, 6.5 lakh and Rs 15 lakh for all 72 wards is pending for the past several months. The projects under these include cleaning, construction and de-silting of drains, construction of roads and public conveniences, street lighting and others. We have, therefore, asked the commissioner to expedite the work and submit a report on the progress 10 days later. At a meeting three days later, we will see reports on progress of these works.”

Deputy mayor Vinay Kumar Pappu said the officials were also asked to float tenders to install handpumps in all the wards of the corporation. Regarding deadlock over payment to A2Z Infrastructure Private Limited, he said the matter would be discussed soon.

The committee, in its last meeting on August 24, had recommended to the corporation board to take a decision on clearance of 75 per cent of dues to the private agency hired by the civic body to cart away garbage from the streets. However, the agency withdrew its service because PMC had not paid it for the services rendered.

Pappu said the committee was of the opinion that the board will meet only after the officials put the pending development projects on the fast track.

“The board meeting was scheduled for August 28 but all the members of the standing committee are of the view that the meeting should be called only after the tendering of all the outstanding work is done,” he said.

Pappu also said the councillors were perturbed by the deteriorating sanitation conditions in the city after A2Z Infrastructure withdrew its services.

“We want to sort out the payment issue as soon as possible so that the private company can return to work. Many roads and thoroughfares are full of garbage. As the civic body does not have sufficient resources and manpower to carry on sanitation work, we need the private agency to restart services as soon as possible,” said the deputy mayor.