'Leaf base of a tree at city school turns breeding ground of mosquito'

KOLKATA: The vector control team of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) stumbled upon a new source of mosquito breeding ground in the city. At a private school in Park Circus, the team spotted that the hollow leaf base of a Traveler's tree or Traveler's palm, which stored about one litre of rainwater, had turned into a breeding source of principal dengue-spreading mosquito Aedes Aegypti.

"After the onset of monsoon, our rapid action team has further strengthened its drive against dengue and has been visiting the campuses of various schools in the city as part of surveillance in identifying and destroying any breeding ground for Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes. A few days back, while we visited the campus of a private school in Park Circus, we came across a Traveler's Tree (Ravenala madagascariensis) and found that its leaf base stored about one litre of rainwater with dengue mosquitoes breeding there. We immediately did the needful," said a senior official of KMC's vector control team.

The school campuses that the civic body team had visited in the last few days were mostly neat and clean. "We are happy that though the schools have remained closed, the authorities have been careful in keeping the campuses clean and have taken care to ensure that water does not remain accumulated here and there,"the official added.

The KMC rapid action team visited the campus of a private school at Minto Park on Monday led by its Chief Vector Control Officer, Debasish Biswas.

Traveler's tree, which is commonly known as Pantha Padap (in Bengali parlance), is not a true palm (family Arecaceae) but a member of a monocotyledonous flowering plant family.