The Salt Lake civic authorities will start an anti-dengue drive, which will include door-to-door visits, on June 20, an official of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) said on
Sunday.

The civic teams will also visit vacant plots to remove garbage and weeds.

Separate teams will conduct door-to-door visits and ask residents whether anyone was suffering from dengue symptoms. The teams will also spray larvicide and check whether water has accumulated on the premises of residential and commercial buildings.

The decision to start the drive in the run-up to the monsoon was taken at a meeting held recently at Poura Bhavan, the headquarters of the BMC, a senior official in the health department of the civic body said.

“Multiple teams will be involved in the drive. They will be in addition to health and vector-control workers deployed in all 41 wards of the civic body,” the official said.

Apart from Salt Lake, Baguiati, Kestopur, Kaikhali, Teghoria and parts of Rajarhat are under the BMC, the official said.

Banibrata Banerjee, the mayoral council member in charge of health at the BMC, said a cleanliness drive will be carried out to spot and destroy mosquito-breeding grounds.

Dengue is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which can lay eggs even in a spoonful of stagnant water. It takes around a week after eggs are laid for adult mosquitoes to emerge.

Public health experts involved in anti-dengue drives call for draining out of stagnant water at least once a week.

“Multiple teams of solid waste management workers as well as vector-control personnel will be sent to each of the wards. If garbage is found dumped on vacant plots or along streets, a team will remove it. Larvicide will be sprayed once the area is cleaned,” Banerjee said.

Another official said these teams have been asked to cooperate with residents and remove garbage if they are asked to.

“Earlier, we had come across many houses where residents would not dispose of used tyres, mattresses and even electronic appliances by themselves. Mosquito larvae were found inside the discarded items. This year we have asked the teams to help residents move out anything that they want to dispose of,” said the official.

On Sunday, The Telegraph went around Salt Lake and spotted garbage near City Centre and the CGO Complex, among other places.

Vacant plots were seen in many blocks, including BJ, CK and IB, where there were piles of garbage. Any accumulated waste is likely to have containers — such as glasses, bottles, cups and plates — that can turn into mosquito-breeding sites if water accumulates in them.

Last year, more than 3,500 dengue cases had been recorded from BMC areas. The numbers have been drawn from testing centres and primary health centres run by the BMC. The actual count would be much more.