Having raised the pitch to rid the national Capital of vector-borne diseases, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday held a meeting with all MPs, MLAs and councillors at his residence to discuss the mega campaign launched by the Delhi Government against dengue. Kejriwal appealed to the party to make the ‘10 Hafte 10 Baje 10 Minute’ campaign, a mass movement to rid Delhi of dengue and chikungunya.
The Chief Minister said, "In 2015, there were 15,867 cases of dengue and 60 deaths. In 2018, we have brought this down to 2,798 cases and 4 deaths. This year, the number of deaths so far is 0. I am confident that through this campaign we can defeat dengue in Delhi. We have to make it a mass movement and involve the people."
"For the next ten weeks, every Sunday morning, every one of us will check our homes to make sure there is no standing water, because the dengue mosquito only breeds in clean water. This will need just ten minutes every Sunday, but these ten minutes will go a long way towards protecting our families from dengue," he said. "The dengue mosquito typically doesn't fly beyond 200 metres so we should not only check our own homes, but also request our neighbouring homes to check," he added.
"The programme will be effective only when every citizen of Delhi joins the movement," said the Chief Minister. "All of us must spread awareness in our areas about how we can protect ourselves from dengue. We must take this upon ourselves as a public duty and urge people to carefully check their homes as well," he said. He also requested the participants in the meeting to share their pictures and videos on social media to encourage more participation.
Kejriwal also sought suggestions and inputs from the participants in the meeting to encourage adoption of this campaign. Mundka MLA Suhkbir Dalal said that all party leaders should carry a bottle of oil with them, so that they may demonstrate how the oil can be used to cover the surface of standing water. Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti said, "I will engage all the Mohalla networks in my constituency in this activity and bring RWAs on board."
Leader of Opposition in East Delhi MCD Rohit Mehrauliya said, "Last year, in our ward, we made sure that the ward was dengue and chikungunya free. I think this year also we can take a pledge that we will make our wards, Assembly constituencies dengue-mukt."
The Chief Minister administered the pledge to all MLAs and councillors to make their constituencies dengue-mukt.
Kejriwal shared the Government's plans to involve more people.
"We will bring all Government schools and RWAs on board and ask them to contribute in this campaign. A meeting will be called soon with these stakeholders to discuss their participation. We will also involve our School Management Committees to take part in this campaign," said the Chief Minister.
An important suggestion made by MLAs to the Chief Minister. Every house that conducts the weekly inspections should have a sticker outside their homes to mark them safe. The CM said this was a good idea and that he will look into the implementation of this.
