CUTTACK: Even as Cuttack city writhes under mosquito sting, the winter chill proving no deterrent, serious allegations of misappropriation of oil and chemicals procured for the vector control programme by the Cuttack Municipal Corporation (CMC) have been brought against the officials and staff engaged in the operations.
The issue has come to light after the BJP corporator of ward no 26 wrote to the civic body authorities claiming that the staff misappropriated the items procured for fogging operations. The corporator Gagan Ojha submitted the petition to CMC additional commissioner Kalpataru Behera, seeking action against employees allegedly involved in corruption.
According to Ojha, the CMC had directed fogging operations to be conducted for 10 working days, from January 5 to January 17, in all 59 wards. As per the plan, each fogging machine was to be supplied with 10 litres of diesel oil (DOL), 2 litres of petrol oil (POL), carrier fluid for fog generation, and 50 ml of deltamethrin 1.25 (ULV) for evening fogging between 5.30 pm and 6.30 pm.
“The fogging operation in my ward was scheduled for January 21. However, no fogging was carried out even though the required quantity of DOL, POL and chemicals had been issued and received by the staff concerned,” Ojha stated in his petition.
CMC additional commissioner Kalpataru Behera said a show-cause notice had been issued to the outsourced staff who received the fuel and chemicals. “A probe will be conducted and action will be taken accordingly,” he said.