The urban development and municipal affairs department have taken cognisance of the heaps of garbage piled up across Salt Lake, Baguiati and Kestopur — places that have been reporting dengue cases every day.
A senior official of the department said that from now, they would have teams supervising vector-control measures across the Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation (BMC) area.
“Our teams will keep an eye out and help the personnel deployed by the civic body to remove solid waste. The teams will also ensure proper spraying of larvicide to fight dengue. We are in regular touch with senior officials of the BMC,” the official said.
On Wednesday, The Telegraph drove through the township and saw municipal workers clean up several places where solid waste had been dumped.
A number of places along the road that runs along Eastern Drainage Channel have been cleared of garbage heaps. The road connects Salt Lake with EM Bypass, near Chingrighata.
Ranjan Poddar, councillor of Ward 34 of the BMC, said they had deployed extra labourers to clean up the area.
At least five dengue deaths have been reported from the BMC area and at least three wards — 30, 33 and 34 — have been earmarked as dengue-prone zones.
Dengue cases are being reported in large numbers from nearly every block in Salt Lake.
Blocks along canals have turned into dengue hotbeds. Blocks along the Kestopurcanal (including AB, AC, AD, AE, AG, AH, AJ and SA), blocks along Eastern Drainage Channel (including EE,DL, CL, BL, KC and IC) and housing complexes like Jal Vayu Vihar and Mahavir Vikas are logging multiple cases every week.
A senior official of the health department of the BMC said that on an average, more than 200 fresh cases were being reported from the area under the BMC every week.
“We are getting these figures based on data collected from government-run testing centres in Salt Lake and Rajarhat. These figures do not take into account patients getting tested in private facilities,” the official said.
