Shri Krishnapuri resident Indu Sinha waited till 8am on Sunday to catch the trash collector's whistle - in vain.

An exasperated Indu told The Telegraph: "The irony is that I don't get the door-to-door garbage collection services despite paying the municipal corporation Rs 60 as monthly user charge for the facility."

Patna Municipal Corporation's (PMC's) much-vaunted door-to-door trash collection service, which urban development and housing minister Maheshwar Hazari had launched on April 6, has turned out a non-starter.

Even PMC commissioner Abhishek Singh admitted lapses during an inspection in Patliputra on Saturday.

Fingers are being pointed at the private agencies engaged by the PMC, which have failed to execute their work properly.

Residents had hoped better sanitation work with the launch of the paid service. The sanitation staff of the two private agencies - Patna-based Nishka Security and Intelligence Services and Delhi-based People's Association For Total Help and Youth Applause (Patheya) - selected for the job were supposed to blow whistles in every area to alert residents to hand them over their household trash.

Initially, the sanitation staff associated with the two agencies are supposed to knock on every door as well in their designated circles to collect the garbage.

However, residents in many localities claimed that they neither heard the whistle nor heard any knock on their doors for trash collection.

Postal Park resident Anjita Verma felt cheated by the PMC as none turned up to collect garbage from her.

"I have been waiting for people to collect my garbage since the past two days but nobody turned up. PMC is taking us for a ride," she grumbled.

PMC commissioner Abhishek admitted that garbage was not even collected from Anisabad, where he lives, on Saturday.

"It was only after I asked the agency people that garbage collection started in my locality today (Sunday)," he said. "Yesterday (Saturday), while inspecting Patliputra, I found less number of labourers engaged in sanitation work. We have given the agencies a week's time to extend their operations in all wards. We already had introduced a penalty clause in the tender documents. If we receive a report against the private agency's failure, it can face a penalty between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000."

The private agencies, however, blamed the PMC for not giving the actual number of households to be serviced.

Patheya director R.K. Ranjan said: "For example, in ward number 1, we were told that there were 3,500 households but in actuality, there are around 11,000 households. Thus, we are facing difficulty in conducting work. As far as increasing labourers is concerned, we have sufficient (around 350). We would add another 150 as soon as we get 70 auto dipper machine from PMC."

A few ward councillors said the PMC should not have launched the facility when the agencies were not ready to execute the work in all the areas of the city.

Abha Lata, the sitting councillor of ward number 4, said: "I am getting several phone calls from people enquiring when the services would be launched in their respective localities. The garbage was not even collected from my house in Shastri Nagar. Forget about the common man."

Ward number 31 councillor Pinki Yadav, too, said door-to-door garbage collection had not been carried out in her ward.

The PMC is charging Rs 60 from every household for the facility and between Rs 1,000 and Rs 10,000 from hotels, nursing homes and other commercial establishments.