Patna, Feb. 7:Civic woes of residents in the state capital are set to worsen further as Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) is crumbling under the load of responsibilities.

Apart from fund crunch, the corporation is also struggling with acute shortage of manpower and is at present, functioning with only half of the sanctioned staff strength.

Things are likely to worsen further by the end of 2014 when the percentage of civic workers will decline to 30.

“There has not been regular appointment of employees since 1998. At present, the staff strength is 52 per cent of the total sanctioned requirement. By 2014, the number will come down to 30 per cent, as many employees will retire,” admitted PMC commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pal.

According to official figures, while the sanctioned strength of employees in the PMC is over 7,500, only 3,927 employees are working at the moment. Sources said the shortage of personnel has adversely affected routine work such as holding tax collection, sanitation, waste disposal, stray animal control, encroachment drive, vigil on construction of apartment complexes, water supply connection, drainage and sewerage services.

“Due to manpower crunch, we generally focus on only one or two things at a time. It’s not that we are not carrying out our other responsibilities, but we certainly have limitations,” said Pal.

After the recent high court order to PMC to ensure that the state capital remains spic and span, the civic body is struggling to cope with the pressure. “Many contractual labourers have been hired for garbage collection and disposal work in all the 72 wards and all of our sanitation employees are working overtime. But this cannot continue for long. The government will have to come up with a long-term solution,” said a senior PMC officer requesting anonymity.

Residents, too, believe the government in not too keen to strengthen the urban local body. “The state government has ensured that the PMC remains crippled even though the people want the civic agency to compete with municipalities of big cities. This is evident from the meagre funds that are allocated to the PMC every year. Also, there have been no regular appointments in the corporation for over 10 years. Things are being managed somehow,” said Nabin Nishchal, a resident of Boring Road.

Shortage of engineers in the civic body though has proved to be a blessing for builders, who have constructed highrises flouting building norms. The urban planning department of the civic body — which is empowered to take action against the defaulters — says it cannot do anything against erring builders owing to severe staff crunch in the engineering section.

While the sanctioned strength of junior engineers in the PMC is 118, only six are employed at the moment. Similarly, against 34 posts of assistant engineers, the agency has only five. Sanctioned posts of executive engineers are 10 while only two are working in the department at present.

This engineer crunch has resulted in commercial establishments and clinics flourishing in basement areas and violation of FAR (floor-area ratio) — a limit imposed on the total floor area.

“In most parts of the city, the permissible FAR is 2.5 times the total area of the plot. Builders grossly violate this norm and construct apartments higher than permitted. We have approached the PMC on several occasions but they say they do not have the requisite number of employees to launch a crackdown,” said Manoj Sinha, a resident of Bakarganj.

The urban development department, however, does not think the problem is very “serious”. “There is no plan to employ staffers in the PMC as of now. More and more services are being outsourced and so there is no need to have many people on board,” said Shashi Shekhar Sharma, principal secretary, urban development department.