KOLKATA: It took the death of 21-year-old girl for the Kolkata Municipal Corporation to declare a war against dengue at Lotus Park , an area close to Bijoygarh—Golf Green—Baghajatin belt which topped the list among adversely affected dengue-prone areas last year. After Mou Mukherjee the girl, a resident of Lotus Park, died of dengue at M.R. Bangur Hospital on Saturday morning, a KMC vector control team from borough X went to the spot on Sunday morning and conducted an anti-dengue drive.This is not all. A separate team from the same borough went to Lotus Park on Monday morning and found an abandoned plot-- littered with all sorts of garbage which has become a potential breeding ground for mosquitoes including Aedes Aegypti, the one that causes dengue. Having failed to find the owner of the land, the civic team pasted a poster on the adjacent wall of the abandoned land asking the owner to make arrangements for cleaning of the wastes. Tarak Mukherjee, father of the victim, accused the civic authorities of sheer inaction. “I have not seen any kind of preventive activities in our locality on part of the KMC health department team for past several months. Had they become active earlier, I would not have lost my only daughter,” he rued.Rathin De, a neighbour, said that he was shaken to watch a girl of that age (21) succumbing to dengue helplessly without giving the scope for a proper treatment. “I am really worried to watch that dengue has staged a comeback in the locality. Last year dengue mayhem continued till early November and now with several other residents suffering from fever, we are keeping our fingers crossed to think over the plight of the local people for rest of the season,” De, a resident of Lotus Park, said. Staying closer to Lotus Park, Sudipa Sen, a resident of Pallisree recalled how a 10-year old boy, a class V student of South Point, died of dengue last year. “Going by the loss of lives caused by the dreaded disease in Bijoygarh—Baghajatin area, the civic body should have been proactive in its fight against dengue,” Sen remarked. Sources in the KMC health department (borough X) said that dengue situation in the Bijoygarh—Golf Green—Baghajatin was under scanner.Similarly, residents of a KIT housing complex close to Ballygunge railway station are living amid fear of spread of dengue in the locality. Last year Dwip Ghosh, a 12-year old boy, and his father Siddhartha Ghosh died of dengue on September 7. Biva Ghosh, the only surviving member of the family, is yet to recover from the shock of losing her son and husband in a single day. Gopal Sadhukha, the material uncle of Dwip, expressed concern over the condition of the playground inside the housing complex. “Here, water is being allowed to stagnate. With at least six people suffering from fever in our complex at this time of the season and reports of people testing positive for dengue keeps coming from adjacent Uttarpara locality, we are keeping our fingers crossed,” he said. A KMC health department official conceded that there were reasons for residents of Ballygunge—Kasba belt to worry about as dengue is poised to take a leap at this time of the year.Bijoygarh, Golf Green, Baghajatin, Jadavpur, Bansdroni,Number of affected persons (This year) : 90Last year: 150Death (last year): 6Danger zones: Kasba, Uttarpara, Ballygunge station Road, Cornfield Road among other areasNumber of affected persons (this year): 50Last year: 120Death: 5

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