The Times of India                26.09.2013

Mosquito-free Patna in a week: Patna Municipal Corporation

PATNA: Senior officials of Patna Municipal Corporation (PMC) claimed they would rid the city of mosquito menace within a week as the corporation, on Wednesday, received 59 handheld fogging machines from suppliers.

PMC additional commissioner (in charge of revenue and sanitation) Shashank Shekhar Sinha told TOI, "We had placed an order with a Pune-based firm for 59 handheld fogging machines."

The PMC spent around Rs 20 lakh on buying these new fogging machines. The Cost of each machine is around Rs 35,000. Now, the corporation has 71 fogging machines of which three are big and 68 are handheld.

Earlier, the PMC had only three big and nine handheld fogging machines. Of them, four belonged to PMC while five belonged to malaria office. The New Capital Circle (NCC) had only one big and two small fogging machines, Kankarbagh circle and Bankipore circle had one each big and small fogging machines while Patna City had none. The five handheld fogging machines of malaria office were generally used by all the PMC circles.

Now, the NCC would get 24, Kankarbagh and Bankipore circle would get 9 each and Patna City circle would have 17 fogging machines. The 12 old fogging machines will be used as earlier.

"We are planning to increase the budgetary allocation for fogging machines from Rs 20 lakh so that each ward can have at least one fogging machine of its own, making it possible to have daily fogging," said Sinha, adding, "With the increased number of fogging machines, we expect to fog each ward at least every alternate day.

Each fogging machine requires ten litre diesel, four litre petrol and 200ml malathion, to operate for one hour. "Malaria officer has been entrusted with the task of destroying mosquito egg and larva while our job is to get rid of adult mosquitoes," said Sinha.