Cuttack, July 17: Pratap Das, 36, of Khapuria is trying his best to protect his family from dengue.

Das said almost every household in his locality were now using mosquito nets and repellents even during the daytime to keep themselves safe. The increasing dependence on alternative measures shows that the residents lack faith in the civic body's effort to control the vector disease.

"We are trying to keep mosquitoes at bay as we live close to the Khapuria industrial estate and there has been a rise in dengue cases in localities near Jagatpur. We have no faith in the measures taken by the civic body," said Das.

More than 150 small and medium scale industries located at Khapuria industrial estate. Councillor of ward No. 50 Dipty Pragyan Mohanty said not a single case of dengue had been reported from Khapuria so far. "We are closely monitoring the situation and anticipate that the Khapuria industrial estate could turn into a breeding area. We will conduct a survey, intensify bush cutting and clear accumulated rainwater from tomorrow," said Mohanty.

Official sources said, 152 cases of dengue had been reported from the Jagatpur industrial belt.

"We are preparing a database of patients to pinpoint the source of breeding sites," said municipal commissioner, Gyana Das.

Das added that the civic body was focussed on destroying such breeding sites and 200 sanitary workers had been deployed to carry out sanitation, bush cutting and fogging drives at Jagatpur. Steps are being taken to outsource nearly 300 additional personnel to carry out simultaneous drives in the remaining 58 wards.

Emergency officer of SCB Medical College Bhubanananda Maharana said that till date 157 dengue patients had been admitted to the hospital.

He said the number of beds in the dengue ward had been increased from 160 to 175 today.