Hyderabad: While the city already reels under the impact of rising COVID-19 cases, the citizens of Hyderabad are now battling rapid increase in mosquitoes and are annoyed by the civic body’s inaction to curb the menace.
Summers are usually breeding ground for mosquitoes, with several vector-borne diseases on the rise. The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) usually takes up extensive fogging, among other measures, to curb the rise in mosquitoes every year.
But, with no signs of abatement from the civic body’s side and ten fold increase in mosquitoes especially in areas like Tolichowki and Nanalnagar, where water bodies remain uncleaned for months, Hyderabadis took to Twitter to vent out their anger.
Earlier this week, the netizens took to trend #MachcharKoRokoNa (Stop the Mosquitoes) and shared their issues, tagging GHMC official handle. A netizen Faiza Kouser tweeted to GHMC “Slush on a street in Hyderabad due to sewage leakage. Unattended, this can soon turn into a breeding ground for mosquitoes.”
Calling for a complete genocide of mosquitoes, Mohd Khalid tweeted “Machchar Mukt Hyderabad, is not a reality its only a day dream. #MaccharKoRokoNa”
Naveen tweeted highlighting the dangers of not taking action against mosquitoes. “We are already suffering from Covid & if the mosquito menace is not controlled in Telangana, then there will be Dengue & Malaria also the real killers”
Faraz Ahmed tweeted “India is fighting with #COVIDSecondWaveInIndia & Hyderabad is fighting with Covid & Mosquitoes! @CommissionrGHMC request you to save the citizens from mosquitoes. it causes serious health issues. #MaccharKoRokoNa”
Another local Syed Faqruddin urged the authorities to come out of their safe and hygienic bungalows and spend some time in the city. He said “you’ll understand the menace of mosquitoes.”
Speaking to siasat.com, a resident of Tolichowki Mohammed Adnan said: “There is already so much tension caused by COVID-19, now we will also have to worry about dengue and malaria.” He added that mosquitoes have made living in Tolichowki unbearable, one can not stand still without slapping his own body several hundred times.
A resident of Dilsukhnagar, Khushali said that the authorities do not seem to take serious action against mosquitoes. “They just come and spray gas every month and then leave,” she said, adding that open sewers connected to Musi river have also become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.
Another resident of Brindavan colony, Saif Shahed said that whenever the GHMC wants to take any action against the mosquitoes they just spray that poison in the air and think that it’ll be enough to kill them all.
“They need to come up with new methods as mosquitoes have become immune to this gas and it’s actually harming people instead of mosquitoes,” he suggested.
Talha, owner of AK supermarket in Paramount Colony, said that the reason for the mosquito menace is the open sewers across the city which become breeding grounds for them. “Unless we close the source, we can’t fight the mosquitoes,” he said.
