CMC breeding mosquitoes while targeting residents

The Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) is to conduct a one-day house-to-house campaign on March 31 in several high risk areas in Colombo, deploying a large number of volunteers to brief residents on preventive methods and take action against those who create mosquito breeding environments.

But the Vihara Maha Devi Park a major landmark maintained by the CMC serves as a prime mosquito breeding ground, well enough to spread Dengue and Chikungunya to almost all the residents in Colombo. The bank of the pond within the park is lined with tyres, empty plastic bottles and shopping bags with the stagnant water already breeding mosquitoes. The drains which have not been cleared are blocked with shopping bags and lunch sheets while large refuse bins overflow with garbage.

Visitors to the park said the CMC health officials have either forgotten or ignored public places and focus only on private residencies.

The CMC should declare a day to clean public places or the mosquito menace would continue even if the residents kept their premises clean, they said.