Bhubaneswar, Oct. 2: The civic body has asked its engineers to pull up their socks to complete all pending works before the Puja.

Though there are about 160 Puja pandals in the city, the ones at Nayapalli, Baramunda, Saheed Nagar, Rasulgarh, Jharpada, Bomikhal, Laxmisagar, Ashok Nagar, Old Station Square and Ganga Nagar are expected to be the crowd pullers as usual.

“I have asked our engineers to take up repair work of all roads connecting the pandals on a war footing. We have formed four mobile sanitation squads to monitor lifting of solid waste and garbage from areas surrounding the pandals,” said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

Jena also said work had slowed down a little bit before the Puja as he was away from the city on a personal tour.

“I will expedite the process from tomorrow so that all roads leading to major Puja pandals are rid of potholes and garbage is cleared before Sasthi on October 10,” he said.

An annual co-ordination meeting for Durga Puja was held here on September 27, in which officials of the police, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation, the works department, the Public Health Engineering Organisation and the energy department took part.

However, the civic authorities are yet to start work near the pandals this year.

The president of Rasulgarh Durga Puja Management Committee, Pradip Barisal, said: “We have been organising the Puja since 1993. But, we have to do the road levelling work near our pandal on our own every year. Though all the civic issues are discussed at the co-ordination meeting every year, the corporation never helped us. We have engaged trucks for transporting stone-crushing powders and levelling the ground.”

Joint secretary of Bo Executive engineer (division-I) of the Central Electric Supply Utility U.B. Khadanga said: “We have constituted a special squad to put a check on power pilferage. We have urged the Puja committees to get their installations inspected by state government inspectors so that they can get power connection for their pandals.”

Deputy fire officer, Bhubaneswar, B.B. Das said: “The Puja committees were asked to have at least six volunteers ready for fire-fighting. Water and sand buckets and fire extinguishers should be kept ready near every pandal. Cotton materials that are used for decoration should be sprayed with fire retardant chemicals to avoid any accidents.”