THE Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's health department has served a notice to Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor after mosquito breeding sites were found during an inspection of the building he resides in.
The inspection was carried out by the insecticide department officials amid the news of actor Vidya Balan, a resident of the same building, suffering from dengue.
The inspection of flats in the building named Pranita on Juhu Tara Road was conducted by a team of five civic officials at around 2 pm on Friday.
While no breeding sites were found in Balan's residence, two sites were found in a flat on the fourth floor and in Kapoor's swimming pool.
"In a flat on the fourth floor, we found a petridish for plants and a tarpaulin on the terrace and an unused swimming pool in Kapoor's flat were found to be mosquito breeding spots. We have served notices to both of them," said Rajan Naringrekar, the insecticide officer of the civic body.
The notices have been served under Section 381 B of Mumbai Municipal Corporation (MMC) Act, 1888, for not taking measures to prevent mosquito breeding. Following norms of MMC Act, the BMC will file a case in the Metropolitan Magistrate Court and impose a fine between Rs 2,000 to Rs 10,000 on offenders not preventing mosquito breeding in private premises.
Shahid Kapoor's spokesperson said, "Shahid is concerned about the findings of the BMC in his building and locality. Specially as there is a new-born baby in the house. He is also thankful to the BMC for the check up in the locality which is vulnerable during the rainy season and also, due to its proximity to the beach."
Despite several efforts, Vidya Balan could not be reached for a comment.
To increase scope of detecting cases of dengue in the city, the BMC is setting up an
ELISA testing facility at Cooper Hospital in Vile Parle, Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar and Babasaheb Ambedkar Municipal General Hospital
in Kandivli, which will be operational from the coming week.
"Currently, ELISA testing facilities are available at Kasturba, Nair, Sion and KEM hospitals. We have decided to depute staff at all the three hospitals to cover the population in the western and eastern suburbs," said additional municipal commissioner Idzes Kundan.
On September 14, a 45-year-old resident of Vikhroli was reported to have died of dengue and as per BMC records there have been 122 confirmed cases and 1,513 probable cases of dengue between September 1 and September 11.
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