Private waterbodies need surveillance: Atin Ghosh

Kolkata: In a bid to add more teeth to its dengue drive, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) Health department is planning ways to monitor private waterbodies, which allegedly remain ill-maintained, while special focus will be on added areas.

Deputy Mayor and Member Mayor-in-Council (MMIC) of the Health department Atin Ghosh said KMC will kick off its anti-dengue rally from next month. He said private waterbodies need surveillance, and added that it has often happened that the KMC vector control team was not given access to private premises with ill-maintained waterbodies which make for a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes that spread dengue and malaria. He said a similar situation prevails on vacant lands, which due to lack of maintenance, see piling up of garbage.

“We have decided to serve notice to owners of such properties under Section 496A of the KMC Act,” said Ghosh. Sources added that the fine amount under such a section can be up to Rs 1 lakh.

Ghosh added that every year, as per statistics gathered by the KMC in malaria and dengue cases, 80 per cent of the city’s annual dengue cases are occurring in South Kolkata (Borough VIII to XIV) and the rest 20 per cent in North Kolkata (Borough I to Borough VII). Ghosh said added areas in South Kolkata are mainly responsible for a large number of cases in the region and that these areas were added to KMC for political reasons.

“Keeping this departmental observation in mind, we need to stay alert and work sincerely throughout the year to wage a need-based war against dengue,” he said. Besides dengue, malaria too showed a rising trend in the KMC areas. Compared to 11,643 malaria cases recorded in 2019, the number rose 1.3 times in 2022.

The Health department is using drone cameras to capture images of potential mosquito breeding sources in inaccessible areas of different vulnerable wards. The KMC has also started a pilot project — 21000 ‘long lasting insecticide impregnated bednets’ provided by Swastha Bhavan are being distributed to pavement dwellers, construction workers and slum dwellers in some wards that witness several cases of malaria every year.

For canals in the city, KMC will be using 20 civic body-owned rowing boats in the ‘mosquito-genetic sewerage canals’ for larvicidal spraying while the creation of a ward-wise data bank on potential mosquito breeding sources will be greatly helpful in fighting the vector-borne diseases, felt an official of the KMC Health department.