Chennai: Zomato penalised for making terrace mosquito breeding ground

This picture has been used for representational purposes.

Chennai: Food delivery application Zomato has landed in a soup after Greater Chennai Corporation penalised them for leaving their discarded bags, used to carry food for customers, on the terrace of the firm's building. According to a report in The Times of India, civic officials visited the firm on Friday for their routine visit following information received about a dengue case near the office.

A senior civic official was quoted saying that as they climb atop tall buildings to check the terraces in the neighbourhood. As Zomato had discarded the bags that piled up on the terrace, they were fined up to Rs 1 lakh to which the food aggregator agreed to pay.

With the city seeing a surge in dengue cases, the action taken on the food delivery app was a part of the city municipal corporation's crackdown against the disease in which they have collected as much as Rs 20 lakh as fines since October.

The officials in the civic agency were quoted in the report saying that bags kept on the in the terrace premises of the food aggregator was breeding source for the Aedes aegypti mosquito responsible for the outbreak of dengue. The civic agency has been visiting houses, offices, and institutions in which officials have fined over 387 offenders and collected over Rs 20 lakhs. The money is said to go to the agency's treasury.

The city deputy commissioner Madhusudhan Reddy was quoted the report explaining the aim of the drive. He said that it is being done to spread awareness about how mosquitoes breeding in houses and how it can be stopped in order to eradicate the disease.

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