A child being treated for dengue in a Calcutta hospital. File picture

Calcutta, Sept. 10: This is a classic case of civic officials not practising what they preach.

The Calcutta Municipal Corporation was left red-faced today when an inspection team from Delhi found Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which cause dengue, breeding in its borough office in Phoolbagan.

The fact came to light today when the three-member team from the Indian Council for Medical Research came calling at the borough III office.

The team, here to conduct inspections in the dengue-affected areas, was shocked to find clusters of mosquito larvae in drums of stored water and discarded pipes in the office that is doubling as a health camp and resource centre to fight dengue.

Visibly miffed, one ICMR official told the CMC representatives: “You are trying to control mosquitoes all over the city, but it is your own office which is a breeding ground. It is here that the mosquitoes are gaining adulthood.”

The team, comprising R.M. Bhatt, an entomologist with the Malaria Research Centre in Delhi, S.K. Satpathi and Dayal Chandra, both assistant entomologists, toured various parts of the city, including Phoolbagan, Manicktala, Ultadanga, Bowbazar and other places.

The inspectors were joined by Debasish Biswas, vector control in-charge of the CMC and Atanu Chatterjee from the health department.

The ICMR officials will stay in the city for four days and submit a detailed report to the state government on Monday.

The team reached the borough III office at 109 Abul Kalam Azad Road around 8.30 am to find the staff and officers ready to welcome them.

But after getting off their car, the experts decided to first take a look inside the CMC office itself. The officers tried to dissuade them. “What will you find here? You were scheduled to tour the city,” said one of the officials.

Satpathi and Chandra, however, went into the office, armed with a torch, a sucker (for procuring larvae) and small plastic pots to collect the specimens.

Behind the office, they saw rows of broken, discarded drums and parts of unused machinery piled up. “Drums pure tarike se kholiye, andar paani jama hai (Open the drums fully, it contains water inside),” shouted one ICMR officials.

The reluctant civic workers obliged. One of the experts peeped into the drums that held water which was teeming with larvae.

He collected a sample with the help of the sucker into a beaker.

In the mean time, another ICMR official found piles of broken concrete pipes. The pools of water accumulated inside the pipes also showed Aedes aegypti larvae.

The rattled CMC officials and health in-charge ordered immediate spraying of chemicals on the premises.

The state health department announced today that the death toll has gone up to 18 and the number of confirmed dengue cases to 1,614.

The ICMR team later toured various areas under borough III where they visited ward number 33 and 34, covering Beliaghata, Phoolbagan, Kankurgachi and Ultadanga.

The team also visited borough V in central Calcutta, covering Bowbazar, College Street and Jeliatolla, where more such mosquito breeding grounds were found.