Bhubaneswar, Oct. 30: The municipal council of the civic body here today gave the much-awaited nod to three foot overbridges to be built across the city.

The council had first mooted the idea of building the over-bridges at Jayadev Vihar, Master Canteen Square and Rupali Square two years ago.

A Cuttack-based agency is expected to start building the bridges by January next year and finish the work in eight months.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) will get Rs 5.31 lakh from each foot overbridge as its share from the constructing agency for 20 years as the latter will use 400 square metre of the space on the bridge for advertising purposes.

Municipal commissioner Sanjib Kumar Mishra said: “The agency, which will execute the project, will invest Rs 2.5 crore for each over-bridge as they will be constructed with iron beams. The agency will also have to bear the running cost of the construction project. The overbridges at Jayadev Vihar and Master Canteen Square will have elevators while the one at Rupali Square will have ramps.”

The constructing agency, Ajanta Advertising and Badri-Vishal, was also asked not to build all the three overbridges in similar designs and looks.

In its meeting here today, the civic body’s council also discussed sanitation issues. It was decided in the meeting that special sanitation drives would be carried out under the super vision of the city health officer to ensure better cleanliness.

Mishra further said: “There is also a plan to address the city’s sanitation problems by floating a global tender for cleanliness operations once the city is divided into four zones. The tender is likely to be floated by January 31. Once the global tender is floated, the monthly garbage collections fees in the city may come at something between Rs 10 and Rs 30 for households and Rs 100 and Rs 250 for commercial establishments.”

The council also decided to employ the Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited (Hudco) as a consultant for selling a 72,000sqft commercial space from its share from the BMC-Bhawani joint venture project at Saheed Nagar.

“Hudco will advise us in the pricing of the property so that we can get a better deal. We think that we can get around Rs 120 crore from selling the share,’’ said a BMC official.