THE New Nation reported on Saturday on the serious neglect of Dhaka South and Dhaka North City Corporations in putting up field level drives to destroy mosquito breeding grounds as mosquito menace is threatening city dwellers in peak summer time. Corporations’ officials thought torrential rains will wash out mosquito breeding hub. In fact stagnant water in drains and ponds are safe places for mosquito breeding and corporations’ officials believe torrential rains will clear their habitats. In other words they were waiting for rain to come so that they can stomach the corporations mosquito killing budget running some name-sake projects.
Mosquito is the vector of many viral diseases, including dengue and Zika virus making people’s life miserable. In our view both the city corporations should be prompt in destroying mosquito breeding places by demobilizing dirty water from small pockets spraying insecticides in city lanes and by-lanes. Data show that over the last nine years, the number of dengue attacks was the highest in 2015 as experts blamed long gap of intermittent rains and high temperatures that harboured pockets for growth of mosquitoes. It shows the neglect of the government service providers and particularly the City Corporations’ officials as they always fail to take appropriate actions at appropriate time to meet their obligations and save city dwellers’ life.
Dhaka South City Corporation’s mosquito killing budget was Tk 12.50 crore for 2015-16 while for the North Tk 14 crore. The Chief Health Officer of South City blamed fuel shortage for failing to mobilize foggy machine at field level, but to many it can’t be right explanation. Unbridled corruption and misappropriation of City Corporations budget are not unknown to people in the city and everywhere. We believe the mayors of both the City Corporations should investigate into the budgetary expenditure and make sure that dishonest employees have not removed the money.
We don’t understand when mosquito killing is a regular yearly affair in a particular season of the year why the city corporations should have fallen short of fuel. It needs to be properly investigated. The claim defies all logic. We can’t overlook the health danger from mosquito bites as official data showed over three thousand dengue cases in 2015. It is the highest figure of dengue cases over the past several years. Particularly in the month of Ramzan, when the city residents are suffering from mosquito bites, the matter can’t avoid the attention of Mayors who can only effectively put mosquito killing programme at the field level. We hope Mayors would live up to their election pledges and do everything to create a better city free from mosquitoes and such other civil problems.
