Pests enter homes, say residents of Vasundhara

Ghaziabad: With the Covid-19 pandemic already making lives difficult, residents of Ghaziabad’s Vasundhara are now confronted with another challenge – pests

Ghaziabad: With the Covid-19 pandemic already making lives difficult, residents of Ghaziabad’s Vasundhara are now confronted with another challenge – pests.

HT Image

According to residents, seasonal pests like mealybugs and other insects have swarmed the area in strength. The bugs, which are confined mostly to trees, especially mango trees, are also entering their homes pointing to proliferation, they said.

Mealybugs are small, white, un-armoured insects that spread during the warmer seasons and act as pests to the vegetation.

“We have been facing this issue for the past few weeks. We would see these bugs in the nearby parks and trees every year in this season, but this time their population has boosted a lot. We can even spot them in our houses now. Our sector is greener than others, with several trees, as compared to other sectors, which perhaps could be why we are faced with this menace. What makes it worse is that that very little has been done about the issue,” said Anjani Prasad, a resident of Block B, Vasundhara.

Another resident stated that after people started raising the issue, pesticide was sprayed about a week ago but its effect soon wore out.

“This year we are seeing more insects in our neighbourhood, especially the small, white mealybugs. A week back, one worker from the civic agency was sent who tried to spray pesticides on these bugs but the effect wore out fast and these bugs started to increase in numbers again. We can see them everywhere now,” said G Suryanarain Rao, another resident of Block B.

“These small, white insects have spread all over the area and a single spray of pesticide seems to be ineffective,” said Rajnesh Nautiya, another local.

Meanwhile, officials of the Ghaziabad municipal corporation (GMC) said that they were unaware of the issue and will look into the matter.

“I have not received any such complaint or seen any such issue. The matter concerns the health department,” said Sumit Kumar Rai, zonal officer, Vasundhara, GMC.

The corporation’s health official said that they will look into the matter.

“The insects are seasonal, though we have not received any specific complaint yet, at least not to my knowledge. But we will look into the matter and get it resolved,” said Dr Mithlesh Kumar, heath officer, GMC.