Addressing a news conference on Tuesday, he said that II phase of the drive will be started on February 10 to administer polio drops to all children upto 5 years of age.

He said that all the necessary arrangements have been made in this regard in the district and accordingly 921 booths will be set up across the district during two phases of the drives. To facilitate the rural population, about 741 booths will be set up in rural area and 180 booths will be set up in urban area.

“We have set a target to administer polio drops to about 17,957 children. Four booth staffs will be deputed in each booth and one supervisor will be appointed for every 5 booths.”

“A total of 3,684 booth staff and 184 supervisors will be deployed,” Dr Jagannath added.

He said that on January 6, the drops will be administered in the booths and on January 7, 8 and 9, the volunteers will visit door to door to reach out to those people who could not get the children to the booths.

National Polio Survey Project Officer Dr L Machado said that in 2006, 586 polio cases were found in India while the numbers declined to 534 in 2007.

He said that since it is difficult to reach out to the children of migrant labourers who keep moving from place to place, the volunteers have been striving to reach out to them using mobile polio units, covering remote places.