Bangladesh’s higher court heavily slammed the city authorities for their failure to control mosquito menace in the capital city Dhaka. Coming down heavily on the two Dhaka City Corporations (South and North), the court criticised the authorities for their failure to take effective steps in preventing mosquito menace despite court’s order for effective initiative in this regard. During hearing a writ petition, the HC Bench said the Mayor of a DCC has reportedly said about the mosquito that nothing serious has taken place.
How such a statement could be made by city mayors is unbelievable when thousands are being infected and deaths are higher than almost any previous year. The Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) set Tk 2,567.45 crore as its operating budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year while the Dhaka South City Corporation also announced a Tk 3,598.75 crore budget for the 2018-19 fiscal year.
DNCC official records said that it had spent Tk 3.97 crore in the fiscal year 2011-12, Tk 5.65 crore in 2012-13, Tk 7.80 crore in 2014-15, Tk 11.95 crore in 2015-16, 16.85 crore in 2016-17, Tk 17.50 crore 2017-18. In the last fiscal year, the city authorities allocated Tk 21 crore. On the other hand, DSCC allocated Tk 12.50 in fiscal year 2015-16, Tk 11.50 crore in 2016-17 which jumped to Tk 25.60 crore in the next fiscal year while in the last fiscal year, the budget was Tk 26 crore. So with a combined budget of almost 6000 crores, 47 crores is being spent on the budget for mosquito eradication. The budget for curbing mosquito population rises every year, but Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) are yet to find any effective solution to the mosquito menace. Over the last few years, city dwellers have been living with the mosquito menace and many had to go through intense agony after they caught mosquito-borne diseases — dengue and chikungunya.
Spraying larvicide and adulticide on a regular basis and crash programme on different occasions along with different measures taken to control mosquitoes have almost proved fruitless, as people continue to get dengue and chikungunya diseases. According to a report of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), 155 people were affected with dengue last month and 586 till the 23rd of this month, but the number was 52 in May and 295 in June last year.
DNCC Mayor Atiqul Islam said that there was no monitoring system of whether the workers assigned to spread medicine are carrying out their duties regularly. They are not accountable to anyone — neither to councillors nor to citizens. Health officials of the two city corporations said that mosquitoes have built up some sort of resistance to the medicine which is being used for a long period of time.
We find the city corporation people including the mayors have failed deplorably to make services work. The allegation of corruption for stealing about Tk 50 crore from the sum allocated for mosquito eradicating efforts must be explained. It is the epidemic of corruption in every area of government that has contributed to failing to do everybody’s job with care. Unrestrained spread of dengue fever has overcrowded the hospitals and many lives have already been lost. We cannot tolerate corruption where the issue is life and death. As money buys posts and positions in public life corruption is encouraged and yet it cannot go unpunished. The mayors have been found careless talkers.
