KMC asks boroughs to continue anti-dengue drive till Dec-end

Kolkata: With the arrival of winter coupled with light rainfall, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has directed all the 16 boroughs to continue with the anti-dengue drive in the city till the end of December.

The city lately witnessed rising cases of dengue. Sources said that according to the Health department, more than 200 in Kolkata have been affected by this vector-borne disease in the last two weeks.

KMC sources said that mostly South Kolkata areas have seen a spurt in cases. Areas such as Tollygunge, Kasba, Behala, Sealdah, among others have been identified as vulnerable areas. The councillors of all the wards within these areas have been asked to ensure proper dengue drives, including awareness campaigns, are held on a day-to-day basis.

The city also witnessed a drizzle on Saturday. In such circumstances, the civic body’s vector control team has been advised to add teeth to their drives in the vulnerable areas.

Debashish Biswas, OSD and ex-officio chief vector control officer, advised that citizens should ensure certain items such as flower vases are cleaned by changing the water. He demonstrated that dengue larvae thrive in such containers. Further, they can contain the dengue virus in case the parent female mosquito was carrying it. The year 2023 saw an abnormal spurt in dengue but KMC officials are of the opinion that in 2024 the figures are comparatively lesser owing to the effective measures taken by the civic body.

Mayor Firhad Hakim had earlier expressed concerns over several vacant and abandoned lands, especially in South Kolkata, posing a threat of becoming a mosquito breeding ground.

Hakim had said: “This is a genuine problem the civic body is facing. There are many such lands whose owners are not taking initiatives to keep them clean. For now, we are cleaning such plots and then attaching the cost to the assessment record of the owner. We have inadequate manpower to clean every such plot. We are sending notices to the owners to keep their plots free of garbage.”