Patna, July 5: The empowered standing committee of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) today instructed its officials to clear within 15 days the dues of A2Z Infrastructure Private Limited, the firm given the responsibility to collect garbage from select parts of the city.

A2Z, which had yesterday threatened to stop waste collection if dues were not cleared, agreed to carry on with the work after the committee passed the order.

PMC officials, however, said the payment would be made subject to verification of bills and scrutiny of work carried out by the company.

The instructions were passed to PMC officials in an emergency meeting on Monday evening. The firm had warned to stall work as the PMC has failed to pay a single penny of the Rs 7.5 crore due since the past 17 months.

Meanwhile, a meeting of officials from PMC and A2Z was called by state urban development principal secretary Shashi Shekhar Sharma today but was later deferred to tomorrow.

Mayor Afzal Imam said the committee has directed officials to clear the payments without any delay.

“We have been asking officials to pay at least 75 per cent of the total amount as the agreement says only 25 per cent payment can be stopped if the verification is not complete. Now, the officials have to make the payment within 15 days. If the firm stops work, garbage would pile up during rains,” said Imam.

PMC deputy mayor Vinay Kumar Pappu said: “We asked officials not to delay payment. The commissioner has promised the bills produced by the company will be verified within the next 10 days and a report will be presented to the committee. Then the panel will decide whether the company has kept all clauses of the agreement and what percentage of total bills are to be paid.”

He added that officials had been unnecessarily delaying payment as the firm had been submitting the bills on a monthly basis.

“They are now saying the bills will be verified before payment but we fail to understand why they did not do it in the past 17 months. All senior officials in the state urban development department, deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi and urban development minister Prem Kumar have ordered administrative officials on a number of occasions to clear payments but to no avail. Even now officials are saying they are not satisfied with the work. In that case, why are they continuing with the agreement?” rued Pappu.