Delhi Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. A.K. Walia has strongly criticized the North, South and East Delhi Municipal Corporations for their complete failure to control the spread of dengue in the capital city. He said that despite repeated directions issued by the Delhi Government from time to time during the last few months, they have failed to implement the required action points with regard to taking preventive measures, through anti-larval measures, de-fogging, spray over water bodies, exercising effective control over field staff, particularly Domestic Breeding Checkers (DBCs).
In letters written today to the Mayors of all the three local bodies, he expressed concern that the current season witnessed spurt in cases of dengue fever, particularly from certain identified pockets of Delhi. He urged them to personally monitor the situation and direct the concerned officers to undertake effective measures for source reduction to control dengue menace and take other suitable measures.
The Health Minister said that the inefficiency and inadequacy of the three local bodies has led to the piquant situation resulting in wide-spread mosquitogenic conditions through the length and breadth of the city. It is a sad state of affairs that as per the figures released by the Health Department of the local bodies themselves, 880 cases have been reported from Delhi during the last one week and out of these 833 cases are from the areas falling under the jurisdiction of the three local bodies. The accumulative cases of dengue this year till date are 1326 as compared to 27 in 2012 and 168 in 2011.
The Health Minister underlined that keeping in view the importance of the work being done by Domestic Breeding Checkers (DBCs), the Delhi Government decided that their services should be utilized throughout the year in place of earlier practice of engaging them for six months only The DBCs are not working for more than 2-3 hours. Their attitude towards checking of domestic breeding is very casual. Neither the Malaria Inspectors exercise effective supervision over their working nor the Health Officers monitored the work of DBCs and Malaria Inspectors. This has lead to inefficiency and inept handing of the situation, particularly mosquito-genic conditions.
The Health Minister observed that neither vehicle-mounted nor hand-operated fogging machines are properly covering the areas within their jurisdiction. The public perception is that these machines are hardly seen being operated in any part of the city.
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