Even after repeated warnings from Maharashtra government and the BMC for not wearing masks in public places, people have been ignoring these warnings. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has collected Rs 4.7 crore lakh in fine from people since April for not wearing masks in public places.
The BMC has fined at least 2.26 lakh people across the city for not wearing face masks in public places so far. The BMC's highest collection of fines of Rs 86 lakh came from Zone 1, which comprises A, B, C, D and E wards. The civic body fined over 40,000 people from Zone 1 for not wearing masks. Meanwhile, the civic body on Friday alone penalised 9,983 people for not wearing masks, and collected fines worth Rs 19.9 lakh.
The BMC recently slashed the penalty for not wearing masks from Rs 1,000 to Rs 200.
Wearing face masks in public places, apart from other measures such as following social distancing, is part of the guidelines by the Centre to control the spread of coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the BMC is making violators do community service in the form of sweeping roads if they are reluctant to pay Rs 200 as fine for not wearing masks in public places.
The K-West civic ward, which includes areas like Andheri West, Juhu and Varsova, has already made several violators sweep roads for an hour to deter people from roaming around without a mask. Vishwas Mote, assistant municipal commissioner (K-West ward), told PTI on Thursday that since the past seven days they have made people do community service in the form of sweeping roads if they unnecessarily argue with officials or refuse to pay fine for not wearing a mask.
This punishment is being handed out as per the BMCs Solid Waste Management Bye-Laws that give the civic body powers to ask citizens to do various community services for spitting on roads.
Maharashtra on Saturday reported 3,959 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the total count to 17,14,273, state health department said. With 150 fatalities, the cumulative toll in the state climbed to 45,115.
A total of 6,748 patients were discharged in the day, taking the tally of recoveries to 15,69,090, a health official said, adding that the number of active cases decreased from 1 lakh to 99,151. The state has so far conducted 93,78,531 tests.
