Each ward in the Thiruvananthapuram Corporation will be allocated an amount of ₹1 lakh for organising cleaning and sanitation activities. Faced with criticism for its handling of the fever outbreak, the local body has given shape to a 21-step action plan as part of intensifying its efforts to check the spread of infectious diseases.
Mayor, Deputy Mayor, and standing committee chairpersons have been entrusted with leading the precautionary measures in each health circles. A monitoring cell that will be chaired by the Mayor and have the health standing committee chairman as vice-chairman and corporation secretary as convener will be operationalised to assess the progress of the ongoing activities on a daily basis. Ward councillors, who have been entrusted with coordinating the activities of the ward-level health committees, will apprise the monitoring cell of the progress and the various challenges associated with the sanitation efforts.
Meetings of ward-level rapid action teams will be convened across the Corporation limits on June 25 and 26 in the presence of standing committee chairpersons. Such discussions will involve the active participation of residents associations, voluntary organisations, National Service Scheme volunteers, Student Police Cadets, Kudumbasree workers, employees of the Corporation health wing, and those of the Health Department.
Clean-up drives
Clean-up drives will be organised in public areas, houses, educational institutions, government offices, and other establishments from June 27 to 29. Squads that comprise Kudumbasree workers, Corporation health wing and Health department workers, and officials of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), will be deployed for door-to-door visits from June 25 onwards. These squads must sent regular reports to the rapid response team concerned. Each squad will be required to visit at least 50 houses and Kudumbasree workers will be paid ₹10 for every house visited.
The Corporation has fixed a deadline of July 5 for completing the removal of waste materials and cleaning-up of drains. The civic body will adopt necessary measures for clearing garbage that have accumulated in areas that remain neglected by land owners for long. All precautionary measures will be completed by July 20.
It has been decided to recommend to the National Health Mission (NHM) to ensure the functioning of all urban primary health centres (PHCs) on Sundays until the prevailing crisis is brought under control. Currently, fever clinics have been established in as many as 15 urban PHCs. Medical camps will be organised in areas that have reported high incidence of fever cases. Mass fogging will also be undertaken in these areas. Many councillors, who attended the council meet on Saturday, called for steps to address the shortage of equipment required for precautionary measures. At present, there was only an excavator available for clearing waste materials in the 100 wards of the Corporation. The lack of adequate health wing staff also came up for discussion.
According to health standing committee chairman K. Sreekumar, the Corporation currently possessed 16 fogging machines. An additional 10 machines will soon be procured for intensifying the ongoing activities.
