Patna, May 4: The clearing of trash and other pending work of the Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) has been severely hit owing to the absence of the civic agency boss.

Chaos and confusion prevailed in the PMC as there was no clarity over who is the executive head of the agency responsible for carrying out civic works in Patna.

According to sources, currently, PMC commissioner Devesh Sehra is in Bengal for election-related works, newly appointed PMC commissioner Rahul Singh — who has been asked to work in the office till Sehra reports back to work — is yet to join despite notification by the urban development department (UDD) and acting commissioner N.C. Jha has done a vanishing act by disappearing from the office without any information leaving ward corporators fuming and puzzled.

Sources also said the situation has turned so volatile that people’s representatives in the civic body — ward corporators — are now thwarting to remove various executive officials from their chair through Nigam Board’s resolution under Section 41 of the Bihar Municipal Act, alleging them of behaving in an “arbitrary and aristocratic manner”.

“There is absolute anarchy in the corporation and it cannot get any messier than this. Sehra is in Bengal but keeps appearing in the office once in a while, which has added to more confusion as Jha refuses to pass on any pending proposals and plans in his absence saying that he has been instructed by Sehra not to implement any proposal given by empowered standing committee of the corporation. This is unacceptable,” said Vinay Kumar Pappu, deputy mayor.

Sources said a group of dissatisfied ward corporators, led by mayor Afzal Imam, met senior UDD officials yesterday and demanded their intervention. Pappu said even after UDD had notified Rahul Singh as PMC commissioner till the time Sehra is in Bengal, he was yet to join duty.

“Meanwhile, Jha has gone traceless since yesterday after agitated employees of the water board stormed into the PMC office demanding outstanding salaries. Even after UDD principal secretary Shashi Shekhar Sharma has been trying to contact him, Jha’s cellphone has been switched off and he has not reported to work today without informing anyone in the office,” Pappu said.

Other corporators, too, expressed similar sentiments. “The government and the executive officials have made a fun of the PMC. We are upset over frequent transfers of PMC commissioners. On top of it, those who are taking the charge are behaving very irresponsibly. None of the files are moving in the PMC as it is the duty of the senior executive officials to do so,” said an agitated Suneel Kumar, ward corporator and member of empowered standing committee. Imam accused that even Sehra had not informed anyone either in the UDD or the office of the mayor before leaving for Bengal.

Pappu said the corporators would be compelled to remove the officials if they continued to behave like this. Section 41 of the Bihar Municipal Act, 2007 empowers corporators to remove officials from their offices.

“Executive officers in the corporation shall be under the administrative control of the empowered standing committee and may be withdrawn by the state government suo motu or if a resolution to that effect is passed by the councillors at a meeting called for this purpose by a two-third majority of the total number of councillors holding office for the time being,” the act says.

Sources in the corporation said many initiatives like sanctioning of Rs 15 lakh as ward development fund, tubewell projects in various wards and salary payment of employees were completely stalled because no official in the chair of PMC commissioner remained long enough to execute pending or new plans.