Moves to ensure good night

Moves to ensure good night
Deccan Herald

If civic problems cannot bring together different departments of the BMP in coordination, mosquitoes can.

If civic problems cannot bring together different departments of the BMP in coordination, mosquitoes can. For the first time, the BMP is addressing the problem of mosquito menace in the City by combining a range of civic, engineering and health functions in all wards in a phased manner.

On Tuesday it was the Jayanagar fourth block complex area and on Thursday, it will be the Gandhinagar ward, particularly the stretch from State Bank of Mysore to the city railway station. The cleaning drive includes various parameters.

“We have realised that just with spraying or fogging, we cannot address the problem of mosquito menace in a wholesome manner,” says chief health officer Dr Vijaylakshmi.

All health officials of the different zones are provided with an exhaustive work sheet which has to be submitted to her at the end of the day.

Details such as number of workers, number of trucks and the gangmen involved in the elaborate operation have to be filled in along with the stretch of the area cleaned.

“The intense cleaning operation was taken up as Mayor Mumtaz Begum is very particular about addressing the mosquito menace,” says a zonal health chief.

“We have daily meetings with her on the progress made in different wards in this regard,” he adds.

A wholesome clear up practice also includes repairing streetlights and checking on the water and sanitary connections in the area.

Anti larvacidal operations, which were earlier the only target to eradicate larvaes and adult mosquitoes either through power sprays or hand sprays respectively is now only a part of the intense cleaning operations.

The BMP is willing to lend assistance to the surrounding CMCs also on how to train residents in controlling mosquito breeding within and outside their premises.