The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has collected fines to the tune of over Rs 54 crores in the last 399 days from 26.87 lakh citizens who were caught without facemasks in public places during the pandemic, a civic official said on Wednesday.
The data shared by the civic body, however, revealed that the number of offenders caught daily has declined drastically, the civic officials have attributed this to the restrictions in movement under 'Break the Chain' rules.
As per the data released by the BMC, as many as 4,314 people were caught without masks on Tuesday, of which 1,478 were caught by the Mumbai police. A total fine of Rs 5.67 lakh was collected from these offenders the data revealed.
From making masks mandatory to restricting crowds and large gatherings, the BMC has beefed up surveillance and enforcement measures to contain the virus spread. The violation which attracted a Rs 1000 fine until September 12, 2020, was brought down to Rs 200 fine starting September 13, 2020. BMC even offered its staff incentive of 10 per cent of the total fine they collect each day.
The civic body has deployed marshals to enforce mask rule in public places. While Mumbai police too have been penalising people not wearing masks in public places. Besides this, there are volunteers at the railway stations who have been watching commuters at all railways stations.
According to the BMC data, of the 26,87,339 violators of the mask rule, 23,50,159 were caught by the BMC, 3,13,289 by the police and 23,891 by the railway authorities.
Of the total fine of over Rs. 54 crore collected from the violators, Rs. 47,36,62,800 were collected by the BMC, Rs 62,65,7,800 by the police and Rs 50,39,200 by the railway authorities. These fines were collected in 399 days from April 20 to date.
The highest number of 1,36,707 violators were fined in the K-East ward (Andheri (east), Jogeshwari, Vileparle), followed by 1,34,159 from the L ward (Kurla and parts of Sakinaka).
The least number of offenders (36,337 ) were caught from M-East ( Chembur and Anushka Nagar).
