Vacant lands turn breeding grounds for mosquitoes

Visakhapatnam: With the onset of monsoon, the vacant lands have become a breeding ground for rodents and mosquitoes, which in turn is leading to the spread of malaria and other types of diseases.   Even though the municipal corporation is taking a slew of preventive measures to check the outbreak of dengue and malaria in the rainy season, it is proving to be unsuccessful.   

Many of these plots in Akkayapalem, MVP Colony, HB Colony, KRM Colony, Maddilapalem among others, have tall shrubs due to lack of maintenance, providing a safe breeding ground for mosquitoes. The garbage dumped in some of these plots are also attracting dangerous insects.

Speaking to The Hans India here on Monday, GVMC chief medical officer (Health) A Hemanth Kumar said as per the requirement, if the owner does not respond when there was a public issue due to uncleaned vacant land, the GVMC officials would issue notices if the residents face problems.

He also added the GVMC officials were also unable to take any action against defaulters due to unavailability of contact details of landowners. It shows a necessity to conduct a survey to ascertain the number of vacant plots in the city. One of the revenue official working in GVMC lamented that tracing all the landowners is a herculean task. 

Hence, the residents of colony should inform public health officer if any vacant land in their vicinity was not being cleaned leading to piling up of garbage.  The officials can find the details of concerned landowners and issue a notice, he added. 

Ravi Kumar, a resident of MVP colony and working at Andhra University, said the landowners hardly respond to the notices. Hence, the civic body should clean the area rather waiting for landlord and the costs of expenditure should be added to property tax. The sanitation wing is doing a great job and cleanliness ranking speaks all. So, the public also should cooperate with the corporation, he added.