Bhubaneswar: The civic body's plan to construct three permanent offices for three of its administrative zones in the state capital is steadily getting delayed as the administration is finding it difficult to start the project.

The officials had first initiated the process in December last year and invited proposals from eligible consultants who would design the office building at first before going to the ground level job. However, the attempt failed forcing the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation to float the tender again to get a different agency for the job now.

Sources said that not many agencies had taken part in the first bidding that forced the civic body to withdraw from the process. "There were some flaws in the tender document that was revealed during a pre-bid meeting. Hence, we had to withdraw the proposal and make necessary amendments in it," said a civic official.

At present, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) has its headquarters at Goutam Nagar and three other zonal offices at Rental Colony, Chandrasekharpur and Old Town respectively.

While it has its own building for its headquarters, the three zonal offices are functioning from rented buildings.

Civic officials admit that the zone offices have lessened the burden on headquarters and ease the service delivery to the citizens. These offices handle works, including grievance handling and tax collection, among others.

"The zonal offices are important. That is why we have decided to strengthen the facilities," said the official.

Apart from having problems in getting a consultant for designing office buildings, the civic body also faced hurdles in clearing the land identified for construction of the offices in different parts of the city. The enforcement squad freed the land at Jagamara in April for construction of the southwest zone office after several eviction attempts.

"The land problem has already resolved. There were major problems at Jagamara while the other two had minor problems. We have now floated a fresh tender to get the consultant and will get the design by September. We will take up the building work soon after that," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

The civic body invited proposal for selecting the consultant, which will design the north zone office to come up at Chandrasekharpur and southwest zone office at Jagamara. Search is still on to identify a suitable site for the southeast zone office.

A senior civic official said that there were plans to construct three similar-looking buildings for all three offices. "The size of the land and the building will remain the same and there will be uniformity in construction. We have got two lands for two of the offices and also asked the general administration department to allot us another patch of land," he said.