Hindustan Times 12.08.2010
Construction at 33 sites haltedStruggling to get a grip on the increasing number of malaria cases in the city, a desperate Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday ordered 29 construction sites not adhering to its malaria control norms to stop work. The norms include conducting fumigation, testing migrant workers for malaria and not permitting mosquitoes to breed by allowing water to accumulate on the site.
In all, 33 sites have been served stop-work notices. Of these, 20 sites are in the eastern suburbs and 13 in the western suburbs.
"We have issued stop-work notices to some developers as they have not followed the norms despite repeated instructions," confirmed P.R. Masurkar, ward officer of the R-north ward — Borivli.
The BMC has also sent warning notices to 635 sites across the city for not following larvae-control norms to fight the spread of the disease.
The notices have been sent after the civic body’s three special squads inspected the three zones: the island city, the eastern and the western suburbs.
Each squad includes officials from the health and building proposals departments and an officer from the concerned locality (ward office).
"They inspect the sites and if it’s found that a site is not following the norms, they have the authority to issue warning notices to the concerned developer," said an official from the health department, on the condition of anonymity.
In the past few days, the teams have inspected 939 sites and issued warning notices to 635 sites, of which highest number of violators, 296, are from the western suburbs, 252 from the island city and 87 are from the eastern suburbs.
The state government and the municipal corporation are battling to fight malaria, which as per the latest civic data, has seen a 55 per cent rise in the city between April and June as compared to the same period last year.
