Mumbai: Days after Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) issued a notice to NGO Praja Foundation for alleged misinterpretation of facts in its latest health report, which claimed that dengue cases have seen a massive rise of 265% in Mumbai in the last five years, the civic body on Wednesday released information on the action it had taken to check the spread of dengue.
The BMC said that the Public Health Department had conducted inspections to check breeding places for the disease spreading mosquitoes from January 1 to July 15, this year. As per the report, the BMC made 62,43,597 house visits during these past six months and issued 8,744 notices to owners of premises with unprotected water tanks, wells, fountains and so on. It collected ₹20,04,600 in fines from notices issued for not adhering to safety standards.
“There were 7,586 places where the larva of Aedes Agypti, also known as the yellow fever mosquito, one that can spread dengue fever, chikungunya, Zika fever, Mayaro and yellow fever viruses. In 2,674 places, the BMC team found larvae of the malaria causing Anopheles mosquitoes. These breeding sites have now been eliminated,” Dr. Rajan Naringrekar, pesticide officer of the BMC, said.
The BMC also appealed to the citizens of Mumbai to destroy all useless scrap material like tyres, thermocol, coconut remains and plastic as water is stored in them and they become breeding grounds for infectious mosquitoes.
It takes eight days for the larva to turn into mosquitoes, hence the BMC has said that water should not be stored for more than seven days in utensils or other storage places and people should ensure that water tanks are cleaned every week.
On July 13, deputy municipal commissioner (public health), Sunil Dhamne and executive health officer, BMC, Dr. Padmaja Keskar had issued a notice to NGO Praja Foundation for its report ‘State of Health of Mumbai,’ saying that the same ‘misinterpreted’ facts and was ‘misleading’ and was an attempt to malign the image of the civic body. The NGO, a watchdog of civic affairs, had in its report released on July 12, claimed that dengue cases have spiralled from 4,867 in 2012-13 to 17,771 in 2016-17.
In the notice issued on Friday, the BMC said, “It appears from the report that the whole aim of the exercise has been to malign the public body and mislead the citizens at large.” The BMC threatened action against the NGO if a public clarification is not issued by them. “It seems that you have done random collection of data from health facilities and added it, making it vague,” it stated.
