HIDCO to meet New Town residents for better dengue drives in its areas

Kolkata: Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO) officials will sit with the residents of New Town on Wednesday for better implementation of anti-dengue drives that were launched by the agency.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said over and again that to check the spread of dengue, a close coordination among various government departments and agencies and the people is needed.

Private vacant lands and under-construction buildings serve as the nursery of Aedes Egypti mosquitoes. In Kolkata too, under-construction buildings pose a serious threat as containers storing water for construction are seldom cleaned and emptied. Civic officials said that the containers where water is stored should be cleaned once in a week.

HIDCO has divided New Town and areas under Nabadiganta Industrial Development Authority (NDITA) into 20 zones; 15 zones under New Town and 5 under NDITA. Each zone will be under senior officials who will oversee the execution of various steps taken by HIDCO and NDITA to check the spread of the vector-borne disease. Both HIDCO and NDITA have intensified surveillance. It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had held a high-level meeting at Nabanna on Monday where she warned the civic bodies that they will be dissolved if they failed to check the spread of dengue.

In Nabadiganta, posters to create awareness about the dos and don'ts to curb dengue have been put up at the roadside eateries and stalls. Few thousand people from different parts of Kolkata and Bengal come for a work in the IT sector. The NDITA has already taken steps to ensure that quality food is served to the IT employees. The stalls have been beautified and made more hygienic.

NDITA officials feel that the posters carrying dos and don'ts will reach out to those who come from the districts to the shops for lunch. They in turn will implement them in their houses in different areas. The houses are the epicenters of dengue and they will have to be kept clean and the dos and don'ts strictly followed to check spread of the disease, senior NDITA officials said.