Ludhiana: Residents, former councillors raise concern over inadequate fogging

Tribune News Service

Harshraj Singh

Ludhiana, September 16

As the number of dengue cases continues to increase, residents from various areas have voiced their concerns about the inadequate fogging measures to combat mosquitoes and prevent vector-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya in their respective areas in the city.

To date, the district has recorded a total of 211 confirmed cases of dengue. The residents also demanded that MC must intensify the drive and make the fogging schedule public on its official website.

On the contrary, officials of the municipal corporation asserted that they utilise 10 big machines and 95 smaller machines to ensure fogging throughout the city.

Sukhwinder Singh, residing in Dhandari Khurd and serving as chairman of the Guru Ravidas Youth Sports and Welfare Club, expressed concern that fogging was not being carried out in the inner street leading to his residence in the area. However, he did acknowledge that fogging has been recently executed on the main road of Dhandari Khurd but nobody came to their street, which houses a number of residences.

A senior citizen, Jagdish Arora from Block E of BRS Nagar, said no fogging had been conducted in their street this season. A resident from Jammu Colony, Manjit Singh, also pointed out the absence of fogging in their street and urged the MC to take immediate measures to ensure proper fogging is carried out in the area.

Ishar Nagar resident Kuldeep Singh Khaira said that the last fogging operation in their street took place over a month ago. Gurpreet Singh Gopi, former Congress councillor from Ward 94, expressed dissatisfaction with the current fogging practices, alleging that fogging in various areas was not being executed properly. Former BJP councillor Inder Aggarwal also questioned over the ongoing fogging exercise and termed it as just an eye wash. He also alleged that MC has given liberty to AAP workers to decide where fogging takes place. He said, “The current fogging procedure is inadequate. One small machine operates for only 15 minutes a day, and a large machine arrives after 15 days. As a result, timely fogging is not being carried out in all areas.”

Dismissing these allegations, MC’s Health Officer Dr Vipul Malhotra said , “We have deployed 10 large fogging machines and 95 small fogging machines throughout the city. We cover every area and street after every 7-10 days as part of our fogging operations.”

The fogging schedule is available with the sanitary inspectors, he further added.

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