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Covid crisis: Malls, parks under MCG scanner for safety violations
Gurugram After receiving complaints of coronavirus related safety violations in city malls and parks, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has directed its
Gurugram After receiving complaints of coronavirus related safety violations in city malls and parks, the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) has directed its sanitation and enforcement wing to conduct surprise inspections at such locations.
The development comes a week after MCG received a complaint from shopkeepers that the management of a shopping mall in Palam Vihar was not following any safety guidelines. Some residents’ welfare associations (RWAs) have been regularly complaining to the civic body to take action or empower them to do so against residents who are constantly violating safety norms in parks.
After a gap of almost three months amid the coronavirus pandemic, malls and parks were allowed to reopen in the city on July 1.
“We have initiated full-scale action against any violation in malls and parks. On Friday, for example, nine people at the bio-diversity park were fined for not wearing masks. Teams have been formed for this task. These are locations where people congregate, so any safety violations can lead to the Covid-19 spread,” said Hariom Attri, joint commissioner, MCG.
Attri further said that he, along with his team, visited several malls, including one on Saturday, to check for violations.
“The footfall in most of malls is virtually non-existent, hence there is little scope to fine people for violations. At some of the malls, we observed that the security guards weren’t wearing the masks properly or did not have the right type of masks. We sensitised them about the issue and gave them proper masks to wear,” said Attri.
There are around 45 shopping malls in the city.
Aman Bajaj, member of MGF metropolitan mall association, said, “During the first week of reopening, MCG had fined six people, including two shopkeepers, for violations. Since then, all shopkeepers have been strictly adhering to the rules. We believe that stricter enforcement by MCG will help curb safety violations, if any, across all malls in the city.”
RWAs said that they have been apprising MCG about residents not wearing masks, especially while walking or jogging in parks, and asked the civic body if they could take action on their end in this regard.
“Although there were several instances of violations by residents in parks, without any authorised powers we couldn’t take any action against the violators except sensitizing them about the adverse effects. With MCG taking full-scale action, we are quite assured that it will deter people from stepping out without masks and limit the possible spread of coronavirus,” said Dhruv Bansal, spokesperson, Qutub Enclave RWA.
There are 793 parks in the city. MCG maintains 310 parks, while RWAs have the responsibility of overseeing 483 parks.
The Haryana government has released a set of standard operating procedure (SOP) for visitors in malls and parks. The guidelines include: visitors and all mall workers need to strictly follow social distancing norms and wear masks at all times; visitors also need to install the Aarogya Setu app; mall authorities will have to ensure that every visitor is scanned for temperature via thermal scanners as well as to ensure that hand sanitizers are placed at all entry points.
