Prevalence of mosquito menace and danger of malaria and dengue fever created heat in State Assembly on Friday as both ruling party and Opposition members expressed concern over the issue. However, the Government denied that the situation was alarming.
State's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Devji Bhai Patel and Opposition Congress member Kuldip Singh Juneja through a call attention motion raised the issue in the House alleging that as drains of all 70 wards of Raipur city have been choked and wastes are not lifted from houses to house on regular basis, mosquitoes have made the residences of the people their permanent abode turning the life of common man into hell.
Due to mosquito bites people are suffering from skin ailments as also dengue and malaria have forced thousands of people during the last six months to take the help of Government as well as private hospitals to save their life. Even after getting crores of rupees from the state administration in aid for mosquito eradication, the civic body has failed to even develop waste management and mosquito control system.
They also wanted to know that when solid waste management project has been made operational in Durg and Bhilai municipal corporations, why it was not finalised for Raipur when the project for all the three towns was conceptualised together.
Refuting the charges of members, Minister for Urban Administration and Development Amar Agrawal informed the House that for mosquito control the Municipal Corporation is taking all steps including fogging and spray of anti larva drug in every ward of the Raipur under the direction of Zone Health Officer and the corporator concerned.
Two big vehicle mounted machine and 16 small size fogging machines have been pressed into service which are spraying Delta Methin E C 1.25 drug to kill mosquitoes. He informed the house that due to efforts of the civic body positive cases of Malaria have decreased. Giving the figure he said while 38 positive cases were detected in 2010, in 2011 19 cases of malaria was detected whereas in 2012 number of malaria positive cases have come down to 16 only, Agrawal said.
He told the house that 975 regular sanitary staff of the corporation are working in Raipur where as in 68 wards out of total 70 wards work of sanitation has been given on actual work based contract system.
For transportation of wastes, provision of separate loader and dumper has been made whereas in wards auto trolley and tractor trolley are used to lift the garbage. Two road sweeping machines are also cleaning the main roads as per fixed route chart, the minister told the House
Agrawal assured the members of taking appropriate steps to finalise the solid waste management project for Raipur at the earliest possible time.