Bhubaneswar/Cuttack, April 29: Contrasting moods marked council meetings held nearly 30km away from each other.

At today's council meeting of the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) a private solid waste management firm was put on notice for poor show, while a similar meet of the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) was disrupted by ruling BJD members.

Bhubaneswar mayor Ananta Narayan Jena told The Telegraph: "The council has decided today to send a final notice to the solid waste management firm Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited. If it still fails to perform its duty in the 15 wards, then the contract committee will be asked to look into the possibility of cancelling the agreement."

In last two weeks, several councillors and residents have raised their voices against the mismanagement of solid waste in their areas. In many wards, garbage stilllies unattended. In April, the BMC authorities had issued four showcause notices to the company.

In another development, the planning wing has proposed that no building plan would be approved if a real-estate developer failed to get the nod for the layout of the plotting scheme with provisions for roads, drains, sewerage, power supply lines and open space. The council approved the proposal.

The BMC council today also decided to remove obstructions over any natural storm water channel as sudden downpour caused by kalbaisakhi (thunderstorm) were causing waterlogging.

However, the council meeting of Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) started almost an hour late after 10 BJD councillors staged a protest today.

The Congress promptly took the opportunity to take a jibe at the functioning of the CMC. The nine Congress councillors boycotted the meeting as they could not enter the hall due to the dharna by their BJD counterparts.

"The BJD councillors had earlier tried to prevent us from staging a demonstration against the failure of the CMC. Today's incident has brought to the fore the infighting among the ruling party," said Giribala Behera, Congress councillor from ward No. 4.

BJD has 43 councillors followed by nine from the Congress.

"We staged a protest as the councillors are not being told about projects being undertaken by the civic body," said Ranjita Biswal, BJD councillor from ward No. 7.

She alleged that the corporation had decided to spend Rs 20 lakh per ward for upgradation of drainage channels and repair of roads. But so far, Rs 15 lakh allotted to each ward for various projects has not been utilised.

"There is no problem among the BJD councillors," said Cuttack mayor Anita Behera.