Dengue drives at private offices, institutions to intensify from new year

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation is taking a tough stand regarding its dengue drive at private institutions and offices across the city from January 2018. "We will take up emergency cleanliness drives if we find garbage or stagnant water in private institutes and offices and will charge a compulsory fee for this in the form of a demand notice. If the recipients do not pay the charge within the date mentioned in the notice, we will initiate action as per law," Member Mayor-in-Council (Health) Atin Ghosh said.

It may be mentioned that the civic body used to charge fees for such services in private places but not in such a systematic manner mentioning time frames. Interestingly, the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department and the Health department will conduct joint drives against vector-borne diseases from next year to strengthen the cleanliness drive.

The demand notice will be slapped by the SWM department.

The joint team will stress on door-to-door campaign and Councillors will be roped in for the drive.

"We will try to visit every single house and wherever we will find breeding of mosquitoes is happening, we will do frequent visits. We will also inspect reservoirs located on top of residences," a senior official of KMC's Health department said.

Ghosh chaired a preparatory meeting on the KMC's plan to prevent vector-borne diseases at the civic body headquarters and chalked out a road map.

Officials from SWM department, Borough chairmans and Borough health executives were also present in the meeting.

According to Ghosh, the formal awareness campaign against vector-borne diseases will begin on January 20, 2018 and Mayor Sovan Chatterjee will lead an awareness walk from the KMC gate and travel to the adjacent areas. Councillors of all 144 wards will undertake similar awareness drives in their respective wards on the same day.