The Mamata Banerjee government on Tuesday decided to appoint special teams to step up coordination between the health department and civic bodies of six Bengal districts, including Calcutta, which have recorded the maximum number of dengue cases.

According to the Swasthya Bhavan data, Bengal reported over 50,000 dengue cases so far, the highest since 2017.

On Tuesday, the state reported 932 dengue cases. The most affected are Calcutta, Murshidabad, Howrah, Hooghly, Jalpaiguri and Kalimpong districts.

The decision to form special teams was taken on Tuesday afternoon after chief minister Mamata Banerjee expressed her concern before senior officials about the “deteriorating dengue situation” in Bengal and asked them to pull up their socks.

After Mamata left Calcutta for Nadia for a three-day trip, chief secretary H.K. Dwivedi held a meeting at the state secretariat. Apart from top health, urban and rural development department officials, Dwivedi’s meeting was attended by district magistrates and chief health officers of Howrah, Hooghly and North 24-Parganas.

Dwivedi told them that members of special teams would find out lapses in steps to control dengue. “It has been decided in the meeting that special teams headed by senior bureaucrats will be deployed for Calcutta and other districts where dengue cases have risen alarmingly. The teams will intensify drives to destroy the mosquito-breeding sites in coordination with civic bodies. Door-to-door visits will be increased,” said a senior health department official.

It has been decided that the urban development secretary will hold a meeting with civic body chiefs of the six affected districts, including the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, shortly to review ongoing vector-control measures and also suggest measures to intensify activities in all the dengue-hit pockets.

The meeting was held a day after the leader of the Opposition and BJP’s Nandigram MLA Suvendu Adhikari sent a four-page letter to Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya urging immediate central intervention to save the people of Bengal from the “mismanaged” dengue situation.

Since the last few days, the BJP, CPM and Congress have been blaming the Trinamul-led state government and the alleged poor health infrastructure for the dengue situation in Bengal.

As Mamata helms the health department, this is being seen as her direct criticism.