13 October 2010
By Raakhi jagga
Ludhiana, India
RS 1 LAKH a day is the expenditure for running 14 fogging machines in the city and even after spending this huge sum, fogging is not of much help in killing the aedes mosquito that causes the dengue fever, revealed experts. This expenditure excludes the salary of employees.
The effect of fogging lasts just a few seconds and is, hence, not much effective.
Moreover, fogging is always carried out on main roads instead of linked lanes. Hence, thickly populated areas hardly get the benefits of fogging.
MC records reveal that Rs 6,800 is the expenditure for running a fogging machine for 55 minutes a day and this includes fuel charges, "medicine" and diesel. One machine is run for 55 minutes only per day and after that it has to be rested for a few hours, informed the MC au thorities.
Councillors, meanwhile, stated that 14 machines are not enough for the city’s 75 wards and most of them are not getting one dedicated machine even after a month while the dengue is spreading. Medical Officer Health (MoH) Charanjit Uppal, however, said, "One machine is going to one ward on a weekly basis and residents should not rely on fogging alone. They themselves also need to take some measures in their houses so as to keep them away from dengue fever."
Asked what effect fogging is having, Uppal replied, "Something is better than nothing."
The tractor on which a fogging machine is fixed mainly runs on the main road of the mohallas and, hence, the inner lanes don’t get any coverage. Moreover, the corpora tion has no provision for smaller machines which can go to narrow lanes. Half the city is congested and has unplanned colonies where tractors cannot enter.
Uppal said, "We have given one manual machine to each ward so as to cover the congested areas. The councillors can call our workers for operating the machines." Councillor Jagbir Singh Sokhi, however, said that 22 councillors in his contact have not received any such machine and he himself purchased one machine last year to solve the problem of residents in congested lanes.
Councillors say 14 machines are not adequate for the city’s 75 wards and most of them are not getting one dedicated machine even after a month while the dengue is spreading
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