Street plays, dance to raise dengue awareness

In a novel initiative, the Delhi government will spread awareness on vector-borne diseases such as dengue and chikungunya with the help of folk music, poetry and street plays in six languages — Maithili, Bhojpuri, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, and Sanskrit — in different areas. For example, if the campaign is being run in a Muslim-dominated area such as Okhla, the Urdu Academy will organise poetry recitations, street plays and other programmes in Urdu.

The Directorate of Information and Publicity (DIP) had recently held a meeting with officials of the Maithili-Bhojpuri, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi and Sanskrit Academies for this purpose.

“Once all academies submit their plans, they will be placed before chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy Manish Sisodia for the final approval,” a DIP official said, adding that the health and education departments have also been asked to prepare awareness programmes. where street plays, poetry recitation and songs will also be used as a medium.

Plans are also afoot for campaign jingles on the issue. The official said the jingles would be played at religious places such as gurdwaras, temples and mosques.

On Thursday, lieutenant-governor Anil Baijal had directed all agencies to monitor and improve the functioning of 24X7 helplines