As part of the State-wide campaign, the pre-monsoon sanitation drive in Kozhikode district began on Saturday.
V. Jayasree, District Medical Officer, said that more than one lakh houses in the district would be cleaned in the coming days to prevent the spread of contagious diseases. Kozhikode Corporation, seven municipalities and 70 grama panchayats have been tasked to deal with the safe disposal of waste and cleaning canals, drains and ponds.
Officials of the Department of Health Services, elected representatives, Kudumbashree volunteers, ASHA and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme workers, voluntary agencies and the trading community participated in the cleanliness drive.
District-level programme officers would review the progress of the sanitation drive at the block-level. Health workers have already visited 1,31,672 houses to assess the situation and destroyed mosquito breeding sources. The pre-monsoon cleaning has been done to mitigate the threat of vector-borne diseases during the rainy season.
Each ward will get ₹10,000 from the Kerala Suchitwa Mission and the National Health Mission. Panchayats can spend ₹5,000 each from their own fund, officials said.
483 locations
Dr. Jayasree said that the campaign had been kicked off at the local bodies at 483 locations. The activities were centred at 980 wards of the local bodies. As many as 1,300 public places were cleaned.
This sanitation drive would also continue, she said, and urged the residents to cooperate with the health department.