A car makes its way through a waterlogged street at Kankerbagh in Patna. Telegraph picture

Patna, June 9: This monsoon, as predicted by weathermen, would be normal. Life in the city won’t. Waterlogged roads, clogged drains and uncapped manholes would make the going tough.

Funds crunch is allegedly hampering the work of unclogging the big and small drains in the corporation limits. The civic body also expressed its inability to cover up all the manholes in the city before the monsoon owing to shortage of money.

According to sources, the state government releases funds to the civic body every year after it sends an estimate. This year, the government has not released any funds yet though an estimate of work worth Rs 3 crore was sent in March.

“Each circle prepared estimate ranging between Rs 50 and Rs 70 lakh. They included expenses for de-silting drains, covering catch pits and manholes. But this year, the government has not allotted any money so far. Hence, the works are getting affected,” deputy mayor Vinay Kumar Pappu said.

The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) officials differed, though. They insisted that the civic agency was using its internal funds for the preparations ahead of rains.

“I can say we are prepared for the rains. We are spending Rs 72 lakh on de-silting work. Cleaning up and covering up of catch pits will start after the funds arrive from the state government,” PMC commissioner Divesh Sehara said.

He said councillors, too, had been asked to support the pre-monsoon works from the ward development funds.

“All the 72 wards have got Rs 15 lakh each for the civic works. A part of this fund will be spent on the drain unclogging work,” Sehara said.

State urban development minister Prem Kumar echoed Sehara. He said funds crunch would not come in the way of preparing for the rainy season.

“We keep sending money to the corporations time to time. PMC has money to carry out the works from its available internal funds. If the need arises, more funds will be provided to the civic body,” Kumar told The Telegraph.

Officials in the engineering department of the corporation said about 75 per cent pre-monsoon work was complete.

“We cannot guarantee a complete respite from waterlogging as Patna’s topography is such that water does not flow naturally and any excess water has to be pumped out. But all the four circles of the corporation, including Kankerbagh, Bankipore, New Capital and Patna City, are trying their best to maintain their guard,” PMC chief engineer Ramswarath Singh said.

He added that there are 35 sump houses in the corporation area to pump out excess water to Ganga.

The residents are sceptic over the claims of the civic body officials and the urban development minister, though.

“Every year, the corporation officials make tall claims about their monsoon preparedness. But once heavy rain lash the city, we have to wade through water. The problem will not get solved till there is a proper network of storm water drains in the city. The uncapped manholes can also prove dangerous,” said Deeksha Gupta, a homemaker from Patel Nagar locality.