Mumbai: The civic chief Bhusan Gagrani has instructed the health agencies to actively participate in various agencies at the department level and conduct a joint search campaign of mosquito breeding places until May 15. Moreover, Gagrani expects a joint participation from all agencies for timely prevention of monsoon-related illnesses such as Dengue, Malaria and others.

“The corporation has started with the pre-monsoon preparedness under the Department of Pesticide which is part of the public health department. Moreover a review meeting of the Mosquito Eradication Committee was done involving all agencies giving instructions to conduct search operations as some part of Mumbai have become breeding sites for mosquitoes,” said Gagrani.

Meanwhile several measures will be undertaken for controlling or preventing monsoon illnesses. Chetan Chaubal, Insecticide Officer said that there are a total of 29,019 water tanks, of which 22,568 water tanks will be used for preventing mosquitoes.

“More than 70 per cent of the pre-monsoon works for mosquito proofing of water tanks in the premises of various institutions have been completed. So 22.23 percent of the water tanks need to take preventive action against mosquitoes,” he said.

Actions of Pesticide Department:

All the departmental offices of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation have been directed to take pre-monsoon action in accordance with mosquito prevention.

Actions are being taken to make the water tanks anti-mosquito, to expel the hidden objects etc. Also action is expected in water tanks, tires, other objects , petri plates , feng shui trees , money plants etc. in mosquito breeding places. Instructions in this regard have also been given at the departmental level.

In housing co-operative societies, instructions have been given to carry out inspections by the pesticide department and to take preventive measures against dengue and winter fever in their premises.

Volunteers of NGOs are spraying insecticides at construction sites. Also, instructions have been given to spray Indoor Residual Spraying (IRS) insecticides on the walls in the living quarters of the construction workers.

Instructions have been given to cover the water tanks in the slum dwellers’ areas and to find and evict the hidden objects. Along with this, a survey campaign for dengue and chikungunya vector (Aedes) mosquitoes has been undertaken.

This survey will be conducted through the officers, employees and workers of the pesticide department. Fumigation instructions have been given in places where mosquito breeding is found in large numbers.