Bio-Eradication of Mosquitoes in suryapet

I)Geographical Features of Suryapet:
The soil in and around the town is hard gravel soil. Elevation of the town varies from +169.00 meters to 184 meters above mean sea level. The natural slope of the town is from North to South. There are three tanks namely Pulla Reddy Tank, Chowdary Tank and Nallacheruvu Tank in the heart of the town. Musi left canal passes through the town from west to east irrigating fields in and around the town. The average ground water table is about 50’ below ground level.


II)Back Ground: In 2003-04 Suryapet Municipality was at the pinnacle in managing the Solid Waste. Present Municipal Commissioner Sri.B.Srinivas too was one among them to visit the town. Astonishingly, there were many mosquitoes even during the day time. He asked the then commissioner that if it is the situation in the Suryapet, what about the worstly managed cities? The answer was that there were 3 tanks around the city of Suryapet and all the sullage water is reaching the tanks and they are the breading centers of Mosquitoes.
6 valuable years have passed; the mantle of Commissioner has reached into his hands in November, 2009. The No. of mosquitoes are increased and Dengue cases were also increased alarmingly and reached to 100 cases in the town. Even a person was also died.
Now, it is the responsibility of mc to eradicate mosquitoes. We have to spray the chemicals, do fogging under the culverts, dewatering, etc. Finally, MUNICIPAL COMMISSIONER recollected that while he was working at his native district they use to access the Gambusia fish either at Kadam dam or SRSP dam and leave them in stagnant waters to eradicate mosquitoes at larva stage.
This, in a small scale 5000 Gambusia fish is left into stagnant waters and tank waters in the month of January. Due to all the integrated efforts and atmospheric changes, Dengue cases were reported zero in a day.
In 2010, there were heavy rains in the state and Suryapet town is not an exception for that. The works of conservation of lakes was under progress. There were a lot of water was stagnant on the other side of bunds of Chowdary (saddula) Cheruvu and pullareddy tank. The water is also stagnant in storm water drain. The boon in disguise was that the constructions of Bunds to both the tanks were completed and dirty water was not reaching into the tanks.

III)Objectives of activity:

1. Eradication of mosquitoes in a biological way
2. Protecting the environment by arresting poisonous gases, by preventing the coils, mosquito killing chemicals, etc.
3. Arresting of Mosquito related deceases and ensuring the health of Suryapet town people.
4. Increasing the man days among the people and reducing the poverty.
5. Valuable money of people should be saved when they are protected from diseases such as Malaria, J.E., Chicken Gunya, and Dengue.
IV) Activity:
A meeting of all the Sanitary Jawans was called. It was instructed to identify all the stagnant waters in their respective zones. The information is obtained through the Sri.D.Sreenu,Sanitary Inspector, in the month of June itself.
MC instructed Sri Venkateshwarlu, Health Assistant to collect at least 25,000 Gambusia fish to leave in the stagnant water of the town to control Mosquitoes. Surprisingly he collected one lakh Gambusia fish in Hyderabad with the help of fisheries department and staff left them into tank waters, stagnant waters on the other side of the bund, stagnant waters of storm water drainage ( length 1.2 km ) and all the stagnant waters of the town. Fisheries department has helped Suryapet ULB a lot.
In the month of December, the rainy season extended to that month and new stagnant waters has arrived. Slowly the mosquitoes were on increase. Again we requested the fisheries officers to catch the Gambusia existing in the town to leave it into new waters. About 2500 fish are caught and left into stagnant waters. For the effectiveness, the fogging under the culverts was continued.
Due to heavy rains in December mosquitoes were increased very much. To control propagation of mosquitoes, municipality released another 2 lakhs Gambusia fish during February month in to stagnant water of the town. Result of this, mosquitoes’ propagation is slowly decreased.

IV) Outcome of activity

1. In the initial days of survey after leaving of Gambusia fish, 40% people have accepted that Mosquitoes have decreased.
2. After 6 months of the initiative, one N.G.O. by name Vruksha Yagnam have intimated that 90 % of mosquitoes have decreased compared to last year, in their locality near Chaudari tank.
3. The Dengue cases were reported only 15 during the present year compared to last year cases of more than 100. Thus saved the valuable lives and money of people.
4. The sales of mosquito coils, smoke balls ( oodu in telugu ) has been considerably decreased, as is reported by a shop owner. Thus it has decreased the pollution. It is also evident from the decrement of sales of Mosquito bats compared to last year.
5. If this initiated would not have taken, there would have been more mosquitoes, due to heavy rainfall and extended rainfall.

V)Personal Experience
While sitting on the front open space of my quarter provided by office, I use to kill at least 50 Mosquitoes with electric mosquito bat.
Soon after the initiative, I could not see even 2 to 3 mosquitoes at same place. I experienced in the same way in office building also.
In some places mosquitoes were prevailing as the breading centers were different Three advantages of fish:
Gambusia is a very small fish and it do not grow larger and heavier. It moves in the Corners of the water bodies, where Mosquitoes usually live. It is a fresh water fish but live in dirty water without inconvenience. It takes the larva of mosquitoes as food, this do not allow mosquitoes to bread. It saves valuable resources, as the cost of catching takes only a few amount.

VI)Lesson I learnt
1. Some people even caught this tiny fish and caused decrement, there by allowed increment of mosquitoes at later stage. I would have arranged boards not allowing the fishing on the other side of the tanks.
2. Staff members, who did not recognize the importance have failed to integrate other approaches and allowed mosquitoes to bread to certain extent.
3. Leaving of Gambusia is a continuous process to control the mosquitoes.

VII)Scope for integrated biological activity
In addition to the leaving of Gambusia fish, there are other two activities are as follows:
a) The lemon grass smell does not allow the mosquitoes to move near those places. It is told by some persons that Paris is a mosquito free city, as it is with presence of large lemon grass gardens. Even in our places, where there is scope for breading of mosquitoes we can take-up lemon grass gardens.
b) It is told by old persons of our village is that a fly (Thuniga in telugu, Thummiska in Nalgonda Dist., and Booga in Adilabad Dist.) can eat away the mosquitoes. My experience at Comport Yard of Suryapet reveals that there was huge garbage and stagnant water present at same place. But there were not even single mosquito because the flies are present. At one point of time, the flies were absent and I could not stay in compost yard because of mosquito menace. The requirement for presence of flies is Greenery.
c) Frogs also eat away the larva of mosquitoes and helps the human kind but unfortunately the vehicular movement kills the frogs. It is told by Senior citizens that only after intensive hunting of frogs, the Mosquito born diseases have increased in our country.

VIII) Relation of Mosquitoes to climate change:
1) In presence of mosquitoes we use coils , smoke ,repellents, which causes large scale pollution.
2) Even we close doors by not allowing fresh cool air increases the consumption of electricity and causes pollution.
3) The mosquito born diseases increases the production of medicines and accelerates the journey there by causing pollution.
4) Most of people even in the winter turn on fans to avoid the mosquito biting this increases energy consumption also increase the pollution and global warming.
All the above activities increase the pollution there by increasing the global warming and climate change.

IX) Requirement of help of people
During the summer, mosquitoes are less and live in cool places. At this time it is easy to kill them with electric bat. People has to follow this and shall not store the water with passion. They also shall not through the garbage in the drains and open spaces, which allow the breading of Mosquitoes. All the water tanks and septic tanks shall be thoroughly closed. They shall not also allow water to stagnate.