Officials of Municipal Affairs dept to oversee dengue drives

Kolkata: Joint secretary level officials of the state Urban Development and Municipal Affairs department will be posted at municipalities to oversee the work being carried out by the civic bodies to check spreading of vector-borne diseases.

It may be mentioned that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a high-level health review meeting at Nabanna on Monday in which she had directed all municipalities to work more seriously to combat the situation.

On Tuesday afternoon, Firhad Hakim, the state Urban Development minister, held a review meeting with senior representatives of the municipalities where people are believed to be affected by dengue. Mainly the civic bodies from North 24 Parganas and Howrah were present in the meeting that was held at Unnayan Bhavan.

Senior representatives of Ashoknagar Kalyangarh Municpality, Baranagar Municuipality, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation, Dum Dum Municipality, Habra Municipality, Kamarhati Municipality, Khardah Municipality, Madhyamgram Municipality, South Dum Dum Municipality and Howrah Municipal Corporation were present along with Rajpur Sonarpur Municipalty's representatives.

It is learnt that it has been decided in Tuesday's meeting that a senior official of joint secretary rank will be sent to the civic bodies where they will be monitoring and supervising the tasks that is being carried out to check spreading of dengue.

The civic bodies have taken up several steps in both creating awareness among people and at the same time to keep the area clean. ICDS and Asha workers are visiting door-to-door to create awareness among people and at the same time, to collect reports whether anyone in any household is suffering from the disease.

The civic bodies are taking immediate steps soon after getting the information by pressing officials to take necessary steps. So, it is evident that the stress has been given on field work. Most of the municipalities have also ensured that garbage cleaning take place twice a day.

Senior officials of the state Health department were also present in the meeting and they had interactions with representatives from the civic bodies.