The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) administration will kickstart a special drive to target areas where people are not complying with COVID norms like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing. The civic body will form eight special teams for the campaign and continue it till Diwali.
The civic chief has cleared that there is no room for relaxation and norms will be implemented strictly.
“Given the fact that cases have dropped in the city, there is no place for relaxation,” said Abhijit Bangar, the municipal commissioner. He added that the festival is ahead and people will step out of their homes for shopping and there is any laxity will prove costly.
Bangar informed that eight special teams will be formed at headquarter level who will keep moving across the city and ensure that people follow the norms. “The target will be to strike at places where there is gathering and people are not following norms like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing,” said Bangar. He added that the team will move in a vehicle and also announce important messages. “They will have power to impose penalty if they find someone is not following norms despite request,” said Bangar.
At present, the civic body has teams at ward level that are imposing fines. And, in the first 20 days of October, they collected Rs 10 lakh fine. Bangar says that since women are allowed in the local trains and so they will come out of their home. “We need to be more alert to ensure that everyone stepping out of their homes must wear masks and maintain social distancing,” said Bangar.
Meanwhile, during October so far, there is a sharp rise in the recovery rate and it has reached 92% and now only 6 per cent or 2,615 active cases are left in the city. In the last one week, more people are getting cured than getting infected. The doubling rate has also reached 136 days.
