HYDERABAD, Oct 21: District Nazim Kanwar Naveed Jamil has directed the departments concerned to put in place a foolproof sewerage system before the next rainy season with capability to drain out as much as 10 inches of rainwater.

Presiding over a meeting at the secretariat on Friday, which reviewed the district’s future development programmes, Mr Jamil said that 1.44 billion gallons of rainwater had accumulated in only Latifabad during the recent heavy rains.

He said that it was quite a feat draining out all that water keeping in view the limited resources at the district’s disposal. The district government had undertaken work on Rs1 billion mega sewerage projects, which would be completed in two to four years time, he said.

Pending the completion of long term mega projects, short term projects were also direly needed to face the next years’ monsoon rains, he said advising the consultant of Hyderabad development package and other officials to go for the short term sewerage projects.

DCO Mohammad Hussain Syed, chief resident engineer of the consultant, M/S Usmani and Company, Niaz Ahmed Shar, DG HDA Tahir Ahmed, MD WASA Kafeel Ahmed and senior engineers of the concerned department attended the meeting.

ISOLATION WARDS: The district health department has set up isolation wards in all the big hospitals of the district to be prepared to face the threat of dengue virus.

The department had also distributed pamphlets in different languages to create awareness among people about the deadly disease caused by the virus.

The health education cell has been reactivated and lady health workers with other health staff are visiting people in a door-to-door campaign to educate them about the precautionary measures to be taken against the virus.

The district has finalised an elaborate fumigation programme and set up an emergency cell with telephone numbers 9200740 and 9200377 at the EDO health office to record any information about the dengue.