More than two dozen cases of dengue have been reported from Salt Lake and the adjoining areas like Baguiati, Lake Town and Rajarhat in the past fortnight.
At least five persons have dengue as well as Covid, said an official of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation’s health department.
In Salt Lake, many blocks off the Kestopur canal in sectors I and II and off the Eastern Drainage Channel in Sector III have reported an increase in the number of mosquitoes in the past three weeks.
Stagnant water in both the canals, rainwater puddles on crater-ridden roads and drains in Salt Lake, Baguiati, Lake Town and Rajarhat have turned into perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
“The water in the Kestopur canal has turned stagnant. There are many mosquitoes. I am forced to keep all the windows and doors of my house shut at all times,” said Nandini Choudhury, a resident of SA Block.
BD Block resident Bhaskar Bhattacharya said they had not seen civic workers spray larvicide since the 2020 lockdown. “They are not spraying larvicide in the block. The number of mosquitoes has gone up manifold in our block,” said Bhattacharya.
A civic official said many contractual labourers, who were part of vector control teams, had not returned after they went back home during the lockdown last year. “We had tried to convince them to rejoin but many said that they have found alternate sources of income in their hometowns and villages. We are managing with a much smaller workforce,” said the official.
On Friday, Metro spotted several garbage dumps near City Centre, the CGO Complex, on empty plots across the township as well as along VIP Road.
There were piles of garbage on the banks of the Kestopur canal and mosquitoes were buzzing over the water in the Eastern Drainage Channel.
Public health experts have warned that things should not be dumped in places where water can accumulate because they provide an easy breeding ground for mosquitoes. The dengue causing Aedes aegypti mosquito can breed in a coin-sized pool of water.
A Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation official said: “We are facing twin challenges of Covid and dengue. We are trying our best to ensure that it does not spiral out of control.”