The steady surge in dengue cases across the Siliguri civic area over the past few months has prompted the Trinamul-run board of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) to hurriedly engage over 100 women supervisors to monitor conservancy workers across the city.

The dengue count is above 3,800 now since January. Around 20 patients have also died.

Opposition parties have accused the Trinamul-run board of failing miserably to handle the situation.

Since August-end, cases of the vector-borne disease have been reported regularly from most wards of the city.

On Wednesday, Siliguri mayor Gautam Deb announced that the civic body was engaging 124 “Nirmal Sathis” or female supervisors in all 47 wards of the SMC.

“They have been inducted from self-help groups. Their primary task is to monitor solid waste management in wards. We have 685 conservancy workers who carry out the task of collection and disposal of wastes across the city. We want to keep the city clean. All other efforts to control the disease are being taken,” said Deb on the sidelines of the orientation programme of female supervisors at Rabindra Mancha in Baghajatin Park.

At the event, supervisors were apprised about their responsibilities.

The rise in dengue cases — highest in Siliguri in recent years — and the deaths have prompted the state health department to send a special team to the city. The team visited the municipal wards and declared a number of areas vulnerable to infection.

Narayan Swaroop Nigam, the state health secretary, recently held a meeting with the mayor, other councillors and district health officials.

“Still, people are falling prey to dengue. In fact, Bishnupada Saha, a local Trinamul leader, also died of dengue recently,” said a resident.

Shankar Ghosh, the BJP MLA of Siliguri, was scathing. “The civic body here has completely failed to tackle the situation. Now they are trying to hush up their failure and are taking certain steps. We doubt if such unplanned moves will help,” said Ghosh.

Left leaders will launch a mass awareness programme and highlight the alleged inaction of the civic body. “We will hit the streets from November 5 to inform people about preventive measures and also how the civic board’s nonchalant attitude worsened the situation,” said Nurul Islam, a CPM councillor.