More than 50 cases of dengue have been reported from Salt Lake, New Town and Rajarhat over the past week, prompting the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and the New Town Kolkata Development Authority to launch drives to contain the spread of the mosquito-borne disease.
The Bidhannagar civic body will start with a cluster cleaning drive, as part of which empty plots in Salt Park will be cleared of weeds and garbage.
“We have conducted a survey and found several plots are overrun with weeds. Some of the plots have also emerged as garbage dumping grounds. We will start the drive by cleaning up these plots,” said an official of the corporation’s health department.
The official said teams will fan out in all three sectors of Salt Lake and check for garbage and traces of accumulated rainwater at homes and in common areas. A similar drive will be carried out in parts of Rajarhat as well.
The civic body is also planning to send teams to housing complexes and standalone residential buildings and government offices to check whether water is being accumulated there.
The dengue-causing Aedes aegypti mosquito can breed in a coin-sized blob of water and public health experts have warned that intermittent spells of rain create perfect conditions for this variety of mosquitoes to breed.
Officials of the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA), which provides civic services to New Town, said at least 20 teams had been formed to prevent an outbreak of the disease in the township. The teams are being supervised by a senior NKDA official.
The teams have been asked to visit housing complexes and check for pools of water in common areas such as parking lots, basements and lift rooms, among other places.
Apart from this, the NKDA will run a fever clinic from August 13 where people can get tested for dengue for free.
NKDA chairman Debashis Sen said they were also planning to donate mosquito nets to the underprivileged living along the Bagjola canal.