The party is over and there is no one to clean up.
Several parks inside Salt Lake blocks where Durga Puja pandals were set up remain littered with cups, trays, plates, pots and plastic bags.
On Friday, Metro visited parks in several blocks in Sectors I, II and III of the township and saw the same scene.
At the HB Block park, labourers have started dismantling the Durga Puja pandal but festival leftovers were strewn all over.
In the FD Block park, where a fair had been organised and food stalls set up, a large number of cups, plates and pots — most of which had water from the rain a few days ago — were yet to be removed.
The park is right behind Poura Bhavan, the headquarters of the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC).
At the BD Block park, garbage was littered all around, including inside a small fenced-off play zone for children.
The BMC has requested the Puja organisers to start clearing up the parks. But the request has not led to any prompt action.
“We had requested the organisers to maintain cleanliness and put up awareness posters during the Puja. All the organisers had agreed to do so. We are sure the parks will be cleaned up in the
next few days,” said a BMC official.
Banibrata Banerjee, mayoral council member in charge of health, said that over 2,500 people have contracted dengue in the 41 wards of the civic body since January. There have been some deaths as well, but the civic body has not announced any numbers.
“The threat of dengue still looms over us even though the number of cases being reported daily has dipped. We
are taking steps like spraying larvicide and our teams are visiting the parks,” said Banerjee.
Cluster infections were reported on a weekly basis from many pockets in the Bidhannagar municipal area, including Duttabad, Baguiati, Ashwininagar, Chinar Park as well as a number of blocks in Salt Lake, such as AE, BE, AH, AG, EE, ED and IC.
Public health experts have warned repeatedly that dengue can’t be prevented if the neighbourhoods remain unclean.
The leftover items are potential mosquito-breeding sites as rainwater can accumulate in them.
The dengue-causing Aedes aegypti mosquito can breed in even a coin-sized blob of water and discarded paper cups, plates and pieces of thermocol that are littered across the parks of Salt Lake.
In Duttabad, a densely populated neighbourhood along EM Bypass, many people are still down with fever, residents said on Friday.
Last year, at least five dengue deaths had been reported from the Bidhannagar municipal area.
