Bhagalpur, June 15: Rashmi Ranjan, councillor from ward number 23 of Bhagalpur Municipal Corporation (BMC), was admitted to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College after her condition turned serious during a hunger strike today.

The councillor has been on a strike along with deputy mayor Preety Shekhar and four other councillors since June 13 to protest against Pan India, an agency that the Bihar Urban Infrastructure Development Corporation (BUIDCo) appointed to look after drinking water supply in some areas of Bhagalpur .

Ranjan Singh, one of the protesting councillors, fell seriously ill on Tuesday evening. Doctors intervened and forced him to take medicine.

Shekhar said Rs 525 crore was allotted for drinking water supply in Bhagalpur city and the project was assigned to BUIDCo. The agency handed over the project to Pan India in January 2015.

The deputy mayor said Pan India collected Rs 50 lakh for maintenance work every month but ignored work such as installation of new pipe lines, new supply connections, repair and construction of water tanks.

"More than 3.5 lakh of the population under the BMC is facing drinking water crisis," she said.

Sanjoy Sinha, councillor from ward number 21, said members of Parsad Ekta Manch (a body of ward councillors) had decided to go on an indefinite hunger strike in protest. "It has been three days and the condition of the fasting councillors is getting serious," he said.

BMC town commissioner Avinash Kumar Singh said BUIDCo officials were to come for negotiations on Wednesday. But no one had come to Bhagalpur yet.

Congress MLA from Bhagalpur Ajit Sharma said: "I have been monitoring Pan India's work regularly and meeting BUIDCo officials," he said. "Everything seems normal to me."

The district administration deployed doctors, a medical team with an ambulance and a police force on the BMC premises for the councillors.