Covid-19: BMC starts month-long face mask drive; violators to be booked, penalised

With lifting of some restrictions, more people stepping out for work which coincided with festive season, there has been a spurt in cases which has the city authorities worried

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Monday launched a month-long drive to aggressively book those who do not wear masks. The civic body has set itself a target of booking 20,000 offenders daily and has deputed 960 staff for the same.

A volunteer helps an elderly man wear a face mask at Children's Aid Society in Mankhurd, Mumbai. (File photo)

The city has been witnessing a spike in Covid-19 cases for over a month, with an average 2,000 new cases reported daily. With lifting of some restrictions, more people stepping out for work which coincided with festive season, there has been a spurt in cases which has the city authorities worried.

Municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal said, “A large number of citizens do not wear face masks which could lead to situation getting difficult in future thereby delaying opening up of the city.”

He added, “The BMC is initiating a mass drive of penalising approximately 20,000 citizens per day found without masks in public spaces...this drive will continue for a month at least, and it will be monitored personally by me every evening.”

However, between April and October 1, 2020, only 18,118 citizens have been booked for not wearing a face mask and the BMC has collected around Rs 60 lakh as fine. Last month, the BMC booked 852 citizens for spitting in public place and collected a fine of Rs 1.46 lakh.

According to BMC officials, till now officials from the Solid Waste Management (SWM) department were given the task to penalise those not wearing masks as an additional assignment, apart from their regular eight-hour duty, but now, all 24 administrative wards in the city have appointed agencies for the same.

A BMC official from the SWM department said, “A team of 960 people, which comes to around 40 people in each ward, will have the task to daily book anywhere between 800-850 citizens for not wearing masks. The detection is very much possible, considering our survey on ground has reported that a large number of citizens do not wear masks.”

Meanwhile, on the increase in the number of Covid-19 cases in the city, Chahal said, “The situation is under control. In the last one month, as cases have gone up, bed vacancy has also gone up. Tests have increased and the doubling rate has risen to 69 days in October compared to 58 days in September.”

On Sunday, Mumbai reported 2,170 new cases, taking the total number of cases so far to 229,336.