Daijiworld Media Network - Mumbai (SP)

Mumbai, Dec 26: Bombay Municipal Corporation has given a target of 24,000 violations per day for its mask force marshals who keep hunting for people moving about without wearing their masks. The officials have confirmed that the force has been able to penalise about 60 percent of the above target in spite of their best efforts.

For example, the BMC succeeded in collecting Rs 26.47 lac as fine from 13,235 people found to be not wearing the masks on Thursday December 24. So far, the forces have imposed fines on 8.33 lac people and the collection of fines has touched Rs 17 crore. Out of this, a fine of eight crore rupees came during the last one month.

Even though there has not been any major spurt in the number of COVID cases recently, the officials have been keeping a close watch because of the information about a new strain of the virus detected in the United Kingdom. They cannot be slack at this juncture, they say. The metro accounted for 596 new coronavirus cases on Friday and 11 deaths. The total COVID cases has touched 2.89 lac as of now.

The clean-up marshals as they are known, the officials enforcing the mask rule confess that often the violators show hostility towards them. They reveal that the officials catching the violators often face reluctance and abuse and there have also been cases in which they were roughed up. They have requested the citizens to be cooperative, as they are doing their duty to serve the people.

Violations galore: Most of the violations were reported from Jogeshwari, Andheri and Vile Parle (west) which fall under K West ward. They account for 55,232 cases, followed by 48,450 cases in L ward. In September, the fine was brought down to Rs 200 from 1,000 but the collection was made rigorous. On new year's eve, the officials have posted additional people, expecting people coming out in droves to do new year's shopping without taking care of health requirements. The state government has imposed a night curfew between 11 pm and 6 am to stop infections from going up all of a sudden.

Because of active steps taken against the violators, fines collected have gone up from 9.28 crore in March and November 25 to Rs 17 crore during the last 30 days. The officials insist that masks are the best protection we have against the infection and they want to keep the pressure on at least till the vaccination programme is completed.