The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has launched a special drive to destroy mosquito breeding spots ahead of monsoon, a senior official said Saturday.
What perhaps prompted the civic body to expedite action is the instances of some state government bureaucrats, including an additional chief secretary, and a legislator, getting infected with the vector-borne disease.
Cases of some residents of a housing complex in posh Nariman Point area in south Mumbai suffering from possible malarial fever also came to light in the last two weeks.
"This outbreak of malaria has forced our insecticide department to intensify its drive to locate the mosquito breeding spots and to destroy them," the official said.
The drive has so far covered the areas around the complex in Nariman Point and the spots near the metro rail construction site.
The official, however, denied reports that the spots near the metro rail site have become the breeding grounds for anopheles mosquito--the common transmitter of the disease from one person to another.
Not a single construction worker has been bitten by the anopheles mosquito, he claimed.
The official said that 23 cases of malaria have been reported from A ward, which comprises areas like Cuffe Parade, parts of Nariman Point, Colaba etc., in May this year.
"There have been few cases of anopheles mosquito bites and few officers and a legislature are suffering with it, but it is not true that they have been bitten by the mosquitoes bred near the metro construction site," the official said.
He said the concerned legislature had recently travelled to Pune and nearby areas, and it is incorrect to say that he received the infection from the mosquito breeding spots near the metro site.
When asked about some bureaucrats suffering from malaria, another BMC official said the ducts of the air conditioners at their residences are hardly cleaned, as a result of which they become breeding spots for mosquitoes.
It can be recalled that mosquito-breeding spots were found in the apartments of five senior IAS officers in Yashodhan Building, home to 42 senior IAS officers, in September 2016.
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