The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation had found 6,337 dengue mosquito breeding spots till June 15. The action was taken by the BMC's pest control department as part of a pre-monsoon drive.
“We had issued 4,812 notices regarding the pre-monsoon drive and have also prosecuted people who do not keep their surrounding clean whereby we received around Rs.4 lakh in penalties from defaulters across the city,” said Dr. Rajan Naringrekar, Pesticide Officer of the BMC.
The department is involved in routine identification and detection of mosquito breeding spots in the city. As part of the drive, workers from the department go door-to-door checking premises and collected samples.
The civic staff inspected approximately three lakh houses till June this year. Of these, they found anopheles mosquito breeding in more than 600 spots and also spotted 23 malaria breeding spots in the month of June in the city. The larvae of the anopheles mosquito gives rise to malaria.
G/ South, E Ward and F/South were found to be the largest breeding spots of mosquitoes. Meanwhile, to increase awareness and to have control over dengue, malaria mosquitoes the F/South Ward has arranged a small exhibition to educate the general public on what should be done to prevent the breeding of dengue and malaria mosquitoes.
The F/South Ward has come out with a venture called Sharmdan, every Saturday when they clean the area which comes under F/South Ward with the help of volunteers from Lalbaug, Parel and Sewri, said Tanveer Ashrafi, head of Pest Control Department - F/South Ward.
“We have appealed to people to support our attempt towards preventing monsoon-related diseases so that we will soon be a dengue and malaria free state,” added Ashrafi.