Even as malaria and dengue claim 3 lives in the past three days
Even as malaria and dengue claim 3 lives in the past three days
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Two weeks into the Mumbai monsoon and the city has already bred enough contagion to claim three lives. In the last three days, two people have succumbed to malaria and one has died of dengue.
The BMC's Insecticide Department had earlier instructed 13 government land-owning authorities in the city to clean up their act, and undertake preventive measures to keep their premises free of contamination.
But an audit conducted by the civic body showed pitiable response from the authorities.
On April 11, Municipal Commissioner Subodh Kumar had held a meeting with major land-owning authorities in the city the army, navy, railways, PWD, MMRDA and so on urging them to make their premises malaria-free.
But an inspection team of BMC's insecticide officers found that two months after they were supposed to have started the clean-up operations, the authorities have failed in keeping their water tanks free of mosquitoes.
"In the meeting all the authorities were given a detailed report of the areas on which they need to work, in terms of plugging the leakages, removing odd articles capable of water accumulation and so on.
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The deadline of the work was set as April 30," said a senior BMC officer.
"But it was only after repeated reminders, that most authorities even got around to starting the work."
According the BMC's status report, of the 13 authorities, the following are among the major defaulters on their promise to keep water tanks on their premises mosquito-proof.
According to BMC's aggregate, of the 13,155 water tanks on the premises of the 13 land-owning government agencies in the city, only 1,665 have been made mosquito-proof.
The Other Side
"After the BMC asked us to take the necessary steps, we have done our best," said PWD Executive Engineer S V Chaubey, South Mumbai region.
"We regularly spray anti-larvae agents on our premises. If the civic body feels there is an area of improvement for us, we can always do it," said CR spokesperson V A Malegaonkar.
Defence spokesperson, Captain Manohar Nambhiar, said, "We already have a system in place and all malaria control activities are being undertaken regularly.
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I will have to check with the concerned authorities to find out on the water tanks to be converted into mosquito free area."
"We are taking all precautionary measures to clean the tanks," said MMRDA's Joint Project Director Dilip Kawatkar.
In a follow-up report on May 17, MiD DAY had reported on how the BMC was planning to prosecute the authorities that fail to abide by the mosquito control activities.
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