Nagpur.
The official and employees of Health Department of Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) could be called ‘Supermen’ if their ‘actions’ in controlling the deadly Dengue disease any pointer to the ‘fascinating’ fact. These ‘Supermen’ have inspected, in just four days, a staggering 103747 houses in dozens and dozens of various areas of Nagpur City in order to eliminate threat of Dengue spread and subsequently destroyed mosquito larvae in colossal measures. This is what the daily reports sent by NMC through press releases have stated. And the officials and employees of NMC want the citizens to believe the facts. Pathetic.
In fact, the daily reports of NMC on various steps being undertaken by its Health Department to prevent and eliminate Dengue in Nagpur are a total bluff. Yes, bluff. The reports are being prepared to mislead the citizens and the bosses in different Government departments. The bragging exercise is an abysmal attempt to pat their own backs but the only difference being by doing nothing tangible and thus putting lives of citizens at peril.
How could the teams of 100-odd officials and employees of NMC’s Health Department inspect 103747 houses in various areas and undertake preventive measures in just four days. It is a tall order and even the ‘Real Superman’ will think twice before venturing out for such a mountainous task. The Nagpur Today report has focused only on the recent daily NMC reports of four days. NMC says that its teams inspected 14358 houses on 28.10.2014, 13804 houses on 30.10.2014, 62620 houses on 1.11.2014 and 12965 houses on 3.11.2014. In sum, 103747 houses in four days.
Take the figure of November 1 inspection of 62620 houses on the table. A simple calculation would reveal that each house would require at least five minutes for thorough inspection of Dengue related stuff such as mosquito larvae, breeding ground, cleanliness etc. After multiplying five minutes into 62620 (houses) the figure stands at 313100 minutes or 5218 hours. Considering the NMC deployed 100 teams for Dengue inspection, the teams must have consumed at least 52 hours of time for the exercise on a single day. 52 hours in an eight-hour duty in a day of 24 hours. Wow!! Even a team of 100 ‘Supermen’ would shudder to think for undertaking such unrealistic and impossible task. But the ‘Supermen’ of NMC’s Health Department have done it!! And they want the citizens to believe it. This is nothing but a total bluff. Make no mistake. Bluffing is a serious crime when it comes to lives of lakhs of citizens. The exercise smacks of false claims of slogging to control spread of Dengue menace in Nagpur City. The measures are only on papers and unequivocally expose the dubious state of affairs being run in NMC’s Health Department.
“Don’t call, send Text Message”:
In fact, chaos is reigning supreme in NMC as far as Dengue spread in Nagpur is concerned. When Nagpur Today tried twice to contact the NMC’s Deputy Director of Health Dr Milind Ganvir on his mobile phone to seek information on Dengue, he abruptly disconnected the calls. But later sent a message that whatever you want to know ask it through an SMS. When the SMS seeking information was sent, the official immediately sent his SMS telling us that whatever our question, ask it through “Text Massage.” Such “SMS attitude” clearly shows that the Health Department is not serious in tackling the Dengue menace. Same is the attitude of other officials. “We don’t know, ask them” is the instant and pet answer.
The ground reality is Dengue is rampant in Nagpur with hundreds of cases reported and are being reported daily. The unofficial number might be double or triple as Nagpur Municipal Corporation says many private hospitals do not report the number to it. In fact the private hospitals are minting money taking advantage of Dengue scare by various dubious means. The words and actions of top NMC bosses are totally opposite. The words of Shyam Wardhane “It is the responsibility of Nagpur Municipal Corporation to protect the citizens from dengue disease” are proving to be hollow. The special drive is nothing but a farce. Nagpur Today found neither the NMC bosses pursue their directives on preventive measures nor the concerned officials and employees visit localities and carry out any house to house inspection to kill mosquito larvae.
Fresh report:
The Mayor Pravin Datke on Wednesday (November 5) presided over a meeting to review the special drive being undertaken by NMC to curb spread of Dengue in Nagpur. The meeting was informed that in Zone No 5 to 9, 258665 houses were inspected by teams of Health Department out of which Dengue mosquito larvae was found in 5484 houses. The larvae was destroyed. Similarly, serum samples of 355 patients have been received out of which 15 patients have been found Dengue positive.
Similarly, several schools, hotels, marriage halls, Government offices, closed houses, open plots and other vulnerable places were inspected by the teams of NMC in the zones. At many places, the dengue mosquito larvae was detected and destroyed. The NMC has appealed people to maintain cleanliness, remove stagnated water, not to store water for more than three days as these palces are breeding grounds of dengue mosquitoes.
