Door-to-door survey at heart of govt’s Dharavi strategy

MUMBAI: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said it has a containment plan in place for Dharavi, India’s largest slum, after concerns grew on Friday following a third person was detected with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19). Dharavi recorded its first death on April 1, with two more positive cases recorded in the next two days, including a surgeon on Friday.

The 240-hectare slum pocket has 850,000 residents and a population density of 66,000 per square kilometre, making it one of the more cramped spaces in Mumbai, the world’s fifth most densely populated city according to United Nations. Activists and health workers had expressed concerns over how social distancing is practically impossible in an area where an average of 10-12 people stay in each of the 57,000 housing units measuring around 250 sq ft.

However, the BMC, which runs the city’s nodal health department, said on Friday that its officers had a containment plan in place for Dharavi almost a month ago. “We ran a house-tohouse survey to get the actual figure of the slum dwellers to keep our amenities ready,” said Suresh Kakani, additional commissioner (health), BMC. “This helped us list high-risk people living with co-morbid issues such as cardiac ailments, respiratory problems, hypertension and diabetes, among others.”

Kakani said municipal workers, armed with this data, have been scouting for vacant places to isolate patients and vulnerable individuals. There is also a group of 800 community health volunteers in place. Until Friday evening, over 3,000 people from Dharavi had been home quarantined, with regular food packets being distributed by the BMC. However, there were complaints that these rations included only wheat, rice and lentils, but not oil and vegetables. “How are people supposed to eat without basic essentials like oil, salt and vegetables? They can’t even go out to buy them,” said Qamruddin Sheikh who runs a non-government organisation- Bal Vikas Shikshan Sanstha in Dharavi.

“We are also starting health clinics where medical officers will check slum residents if they develop any symptoms,” another senior health officer told HT.