Commuters, some with masks on the chin, at Borivli station. Pic/Satej Shinde
Despite repeated warnings and the threat of a second wave of the pandemic in the city, Mumbaikars continue to violate the guideline mandating face masks in public places. On average, the civic body has been fining about 2,000 people daily and over the past 20 days, the penalty collected has doubled.
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As of November 6, the BMC collected Rs 4.7 crore in fines, which increased to R9.28 crore till November 25.
Civic officials said that this has been possible with aggressive action against the violators as this is the only way, besides testing, to control the spread of the disease.
The drive against mask-less violators started in September and picked up pace only by October and the civic body took the aggressive approach this month. In just one week, the BMC has fined about 1 lakh people.
Officials said that people are still being careless and roaming about the city without a mask. Civic officials along with clean-up marshals have been strictly cracking down on people not wearing a mask — an important protective gear against COVID-19.
Majority of violators — 29,268 — fined till now are from K West ward, which includes Andheri, Jogeshwari and Vile Parle, followed by S ward, which includes Bhandup, where 25,290 people have been fined so far.
A total of 24,652 people were fined in L ward comprising Kurla, 23,740 in K East ward and 22,608 in F South ward comprising Parel and Lalbaug. Civic officials have been given a target of acting against at least 20,000 violators across 24 wards daily. They have been told to penalise at least 100 people violating the mask rule in each corporator's ward. There are 227 corporators in the city.
Also Read: Maharashtra's fresh COVID cases remain above 6,000
A senior civic official, not willing to be named, said, "We are making efforts to ensure that COVID-19 cases are under control, but even citizens need to cooperate with us and follow the precautionary measures. We have observed that many are still out on the streets without masks. So, we have instructed our teams to be aggressive to ensure that the protocol is followed."
"To curb the spread of the virus, we are conducting rigorous COVID-19 tests and screening the labour and the working class, and the citizens' responsibility is to wear masks."
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