Dengue control workers to protest in front of CM Kejriwal’s house

NEW DELHI: Dengue control workers, who are currently on strike, will protest in front of the Delhi chief minister’s official residence on Thursday to press for their various demands, including regularisation of services, a leader of their union said.

Amid a rise in dengue cases in Delhi, scores of city municipal workers, who are at the forefront of the fight against vector-borne diseases, began their indefinite strike on Monday.

“Our issues are not being heard seriously and, therefore, we are going to protest outside the CM house tomorrow. We want our demand to be met by authorities,” Anti-Malaria Ekta Karmachari Union’s president Devanand Sharma said.

The ongoing strike by DBC workers could spell trouble for Delhi as there is a threat of a rise in cases of dengue and other vector-borne diseases due to monsoon rains and recent flooding in parts of Delhi owing to the increase in water levels of the Yamuna.

The water level of the Yamuna in Delhi, however, dropped below the warning mark of 204.5 metres on Wednesday, the first time after the river breached the threshold on July 9, following heavy rains in the national capital and the upper catchment areas. There are about 3,000 dengue breeding checking (DBC)
workers in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi besides 2,000 field workers.