Mosquito nuisance has added to the sufferings of the city dwellers in Dhaka, already dogged by multifarious problems, in absence of drives to check the breeding of the insect.
Residents of different city areas have alleged that they saw no measures taken to control the mosquito breeding in October. Officials of the two city corporations of Dhaka, however, have claimed that they run anti-mosquito drives under their routine programme.
Residents of many areas including Malibagh, Maghbazar, Khilgaon, Basabo, Rampura, Mirpur, Pallabi, Kazipara, Maniknagar, Mugda, Mohammadpur, Madartek, Lalbagh and Rajabazar have complained about severe mosquito bites hampering their daily life.
Samia Rashid, a resident of the area near Khilgaon-Basabo canal, blamed the city corporations for their negligence in cleaning water bodies and drains which are major mosquito breeding grounds.
She told New Age that children and examinees of different public exams are facing problems to study because of mosquito biting.
Iqbal Mahmud, a resident of Mirpur, complained that he did not see any city corporation official using fogger machines in his area in the last two years. He criticised the city corporations for their irregular anti-mosquito drives.
Dhaka South City Corporation health officer Fazle Shamsul Kabir said they did not get any order yet from higher official for removal of hyacinth from the water bodies as pesticide does not work if the hyacinth is there.
He said the main mosquito breeding season is November–March every year and before that city corporation have to remove hyacinth and then spray pesticides.
There are two types of pesticides — larvaecide and adulticide. They spray larvaecide in the morning which make oily coat on and interrupt development of mosquito eggs.
They spray adulticide in the evening which is expensive and run by Octan.
Dhaka South City Corporation chief health officer Md Abdullah Al Harun told New Age that mosquito did not start disturbing city dwellers as they did not get any complain from city dwellers yet.
He said that there was no special arrangement at all and before upcoming winter the hyacinth would dry up.
Abdullah Al Harun said people should not depend on the city corporations only to eradicate mosquito; they should keep their premises clean.
Dhaka North City Corporation chief health officer Afjalur Rahman said very soon they would start their crash programme as anti-mosquito drive starts before winter.
He said that with Tk 6 crore budgets, they have estimated Tk 2.5 crore to clean hyacinth of different water bodies including lakes, canals and ponds.
Afjalur Rahman said they had already cleaned hyacinth from all water bodies.
-With New Age input
