Remove stagnant water or face music

In a bid to curb the mosquito-borne Dengue disease, the authorities have threatened tough action against people who do not drain away stagnant water in their buildings and houses. 

"Some people do not clear their construction sites according to the order. They will be brought to book," said Local Government and Rural Development Minister Md Tajul Islam on Monday. 

He gave the warning during an inspection of a drive by the Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) against Aedes mosquitoes.

Meanwhile, DNCC Executive Magistrate Mir Nahid Ahsan said, "The owners will be fined and given a final warning."

Tajul Islam further said DNCC employees had earlier inspected all building construction sites and had requested their owners to drain away all stagnant water every three days. 

"Staffers explained to the people that stagnant water is a breeding ground for the Aedes mosquitos, and building construction sites are the most risky places for this," he added.

He said, "We also try to increase public awareness about the dangerous impact of stagnant water."  

DNCC Mayor Atiqul Islam said, "We keep saying that high-rise buildings are 52 percent risky, construction sites 25 percent, houses 10 percent and others are 13 percent risky."

Regretfully, most owners of building construction sites pay no heed to the city corporation's orders, and, for those few people, everyone is at risk, he added. 

"So this is the time to speak out against those people in society," said the mayor.

Later, a city corporation team visited some building construction sites. They found larvae at a building on road No 9 but the owner was not present there. 

DNCC Executive Magistrate Mir Nahid Ahsan then phoned the owner and asked him to come to the city corporation office.

Experts said earlier that not applying scientific methods to kill mosquitos, absence of entomologists in the city corporations, lack of civic engagement, manpower shortage in the city corporations, and programmes aimed at controlling only Culex mosquitoes are behind the failure in containing the Aedes genus.

In the last 20 years, more than 1.5 lakh people were affected by dengue and 450 of them died. The numbers are higher, according to unofficial data. The health directorate prepares dengue statistics after analysing information from 41 government and private hospitals in Dhaka and other divisional levels.