Consulting a doctor and taking a blood test are the fest steps to tackle dengue. (Agence-France Presse)
As Delhi faces the worst dengue outbreak in five years - which has killed 15 people and sent thousands to hospitals -- NDTV found that little or no prevention programme has been carried out for the disease in the slums of south Delhi.
The local mayor, a BJP man, claims they had received no fund for the purpose, even though money is separately earmarked in budget to contain waterborne diseases. The Arvind Kejriwal government has released Rs 29 crore of the Rs 117 crore yearly allocation, the New Delhi Municipal Corporation has said.
In the slum cluster of South Delhi's Khanpur, NDTV found a child is suffering from fever at every second home. There is no tap water in the area and every family has stored water in large and small open containers - an invitation to the mosquitoes that breed in the water and spread the disease.
The residents said this year, no one from the corporation came to remind them to cover the containers. No fumigation was carried out in the area either.
Sources in the municipal corporation admit they were not prepared for dengue -- a disease that comes back to bite the national capital every year.
Mr Subhash Arya, the Mayor of the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, told NDTV they were yet to see a paise of the Rs 28 crore allocated in the budget for dengue, malaria and other water-borne diseases.
"Mr Kejriwal says he has released more money than required. His ministers are blatantly lying and fooling the people of the capital," Mr Arya said.
The civic body has also explained this in detail in its report to the government's standing committee on health following a question of dengue preparedness.
Papers accessed by NDTV show that almost 80,000 homes were suspected to be breeding dengue mosquitoes, the civic body has only pulled up 46,000.
Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Dilip Pandey said, "There is a statistic from last time that a sum of Rs 45 crore was allocated for the prevention dengue and malaria. Of this, they spent only Rs 18 crore. From this, you can make out that whether they are responsibly standing with the public of Delhi and doing politics or not."