Civic body to spend Rs7.5cr on water supply schemes

Patna: The Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC), at its Empowered Standing Committee (ESC) meeting here on Monday decided to utilize Rs 7.5 crore of the 14th Finance Commission for supplying water to every household in the city.
"The decision to utilize Rs 7.5 crore for water supply schemes has been taken keeping in mind the seven commitments (Saat Nishchay) of CM Nitish Kumar," said PMC mayor Afzal Imam.
The ESC also decided to start door-to-door garbage collection in two more wards - number 2 and 67. "We have selected ward number 67 because the area is around Patna Saheb gurdwara where a big celebration on the occasion of 350th birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh is scheduled to be held."
The committee has also approved the decisions to open one office in each ward, especially to carry on the work related to holding tax, purchase of 10 fogging machines from BUIDCO, maintenance of sump houses and free use of public toilets. Altogether 20 items were on the meeting's agenda.
Meanwhile, outgoing municipal commissioner Jai Singh, who was in his office for the last day, said a good platform had been made for his successor to carry forward the work related to the civic body, still much needed to be done.
"When I joined as commissioner here, the situation was very different. There used to be clashes between officers and elected representatives. But that has abated to a great extent, which paved way for taking big decisions. Even contractors working for PMC were satisfied because we cleared their dues," said Singh, who joined the office in April last year.
However, he said, a lot needed to be done, especially in case of manpower because PMC had a shortage of staff. Talking about door-to-door garbage collection, the municipal commissioner said money for it was not being used for quite a long period earlier, but now at least some work has been initiated and some equipments have also been bought. "I expect door-to-door to be successful," he said.