COIMBATORE: Coimbatore
corporation seems to be losing its battle with the mosquito as it
continues to survive the control measures implemented by the civic body.
The menace in the city and outskirts has increased multi-fold over the
past few days inviting sharp criticism from the public.

“Everyone is talking about the growing mosquito menace. It really
exposes the corporation’s inefficiency,” said M Parasuram, a resident of
Peelamedu.

Alleging that they have not seen a corporation
worker for weeks together in their area, he called for a closer scrutiny
of the civic body’s mosquito control measures.

The corporation
presently has 100 handheld or portable fogging machines for its 100
wards and 5 vehicle-mounted fogging machines for the 5 zones. “Each ward
has only one worker to handle the portable fogging machine. This is far
from adequate, to handle fogging activities throughout the ward,” said a
sanitary inspector on conditions of anonymity. The worker is
responsible for wiping out mosquito breeding places by

spraying chemicals in tanks and larvicide in drains. The same worker has to carry out fogging activities by evening, he said.

Field-level workers complained that lack of manpower has hampered the
corporation’s efforts in curbing the mosquito menace. Besides, each zone
has only one vehicle-mounted fogging machine. “Each zone has 20 wards
and it is hard to implement control measures on a regular basis with
just one machine,” said another sanitary inspector. This is why the
machine is seen only once every fortnight in a ward as it takes 20 days
to cover the entire zone.

A conservancy worker who was with the
corporation for more than 10 years said that earlier there were field
assistants to monitor the mosquito control activities which were
effective. Today, there are no assistants to oversee procedures, he
added.

“Apart from inadequate manpower, widespread
irregularities in carrying out fogging activities across corporation
wards go unchecked,” said V Ramamoorthy, ward 42 councillor.

R
Raveendran, secretary of Residents Awareness Association of Coimbatore
(RAAC) demanded public scrutiny of mosquito control activities.
“Tracking devices should be attached to the vehicle-mounted fogging
machines to monitor their movement. A schedule of fogging activities to
be followed scrupulously must be established,” he suggested. Adjudged
the best corporation in 2012 by the state government, the city
corporation is struggling to maintain its top position because of its
inability to control mosquitoes.

However, the corporation’s
deputy commissioner S Sivarasu claimed that there is absolutely no
question of inadequate manpower and that mosquito control measures are
being carried out regularly.