Mayor spearheads awareness campaign against dengue

Kolkata: The Kolkata Municipal Corporation on Sunday stepped up ante against dengue with Mayor Sovan Chatterjee, members Mayor-in Council and Councillors conducting awareness drives at all 144 wards of the civic body.

Chatterjee led from the front as he took to the streets in his own ward 131 at Behala Parnasree and also spread bleaching powder on his own. A few days back, the Mayor had held a meeting with the Councillors and urged all of them to conduct awareness drives in their respective wards. Each Councillor was provided with Rs 1,000 and leaflets on dengue awareness

"Today (Sunday) we are conducting drives in all the wards of the civic body. Kolkata is safe when it comes to dengue. There is nothing to panic. Some political forces are trying to spread canards over dengue. Any type of fever is being branded as dengue by these forces. We want to deliver the message to the people that the state government along with the KMC is ready to combat dengue," Chatterjee said.

He made it clear that the Opposition is indulging in negative campaign against the vector-borne disease to create confusion among the people. He claimed that if the statistics of dengue is compared with that of the previous years, it will be evident that the incidents of the disease have been much less.

Chairperson of KMC Mala Roy led a dengue rally at her own ward 88 in Tollygunge area. "People are suffering from unknown fever in my ward but cases of vector-borne diseases like dengue and malaria are few. However, in some pockets there is still lack of awareness among people about the preventive measures to fight dengue. So, we are conducting such drives across the city," Roy said.

Member Mayor-in-Council (Parks & Gardens) Debasish Kumar conducted awareness in his own ward 85. "Awareness is the key to fight diseases like dengue," he said.

Meanwhile, two dengue deaths were reported from Netaji Nagar and Kestopur area on Sunday. An aged lady Sabita Rani Dey died of dengue at Netaji Nagar while a 10-year-old school student Soumyajit Pal, a resident of Kestopur died at Beliaghata ID hospital. Kestopur area, however, is under the jurisdiction of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation.