Calcutta’s deputy mayor visited Jadavpur University on Thursday for an inspection in the middle of the dengue season and came back shocked by what he saw.
Mounds of garbage littered with coconut shells, used styrofoam boxes and pieces of scrap: there was a potential mosquito-breeding site in almost step corner.
Deputy mayor Atin Ghosh told reporters: “Had the university authorities done their job, I wouldn’t have to come. During the visit, we spotted larvae of the dengue-causing Aedes aegypti mosquito in several areas. The university authorities have a lot to do. If adequate measures are not taken on a war footing, more cases would be reported among students, teachers and those living on the campus.”
A 23-year-old JU student died of dengue last week. Two other students are in hospital.
Ghosh asked JU registrar Snehamanju Basu why adequate steps had not been taken to destroy mosquito-breeding sites. According to entomologists, that is the most important measure to combat any vector-borne disease.
Ghosh, in the presence of the registrar, asked a civic official to slap the university with a notice over its alleged failure to dispose of garbage in two designated places on the campus.
Ghosh was accompanied by the councillor of Ward 92, Madhuchhanda Deb, chairperson of the local borough committee, Juin Biswas, and other civic officials.
The JU campus sprawls across 59 acres.
The team visited a vacant plot near gate III and found puddles and pieces of scrap iron littering a passage.
“The land is filled with small pockets of water. There are pieces of thermocol where water has accumulated. There were mosquito larvae. We told the university that stagnant water accumulating in the junk iron pieces can breed mosquitoes,” Ghosh said.
“All these will have to be removed by Friday. We are ready to help the university with our manpower.”
When borough chairperson Biswas wondered why adequate steps had not been taken despite the student’s death, a JU employee said the student lived outside the campus. Biswas said it was “bizarre logic”.
Registar Basu said: “We are doing our level best.”
