E-Paper
PMC escalates action against hotels for not following Covid norms
Since November 24, until December 18 the civic body has collected over Rs 1.78 lakh from over 1,668 establishments.
Ahead of New Year celebrations, the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has escalated action against hotels, restaurants and malls for not following Covid norms.
Since November 24, until December 18 the civic body has collected over Rs 1.78 lakh from over 1,668 establishments.
The PMC has formed special squads to keep a check on such establishments where the Covid-19 norms are not being followed.
Across the 15 wards, the PMC has penalized hotels, bars, restaurants, malls, shops and other establishments and even issued notices when found that the patrons were not following the Covid-19 norms including social distancing and wearing masks.
The Shivajinagar-Ghole road ward collected the maximum amount of fines from such establishments of Rs 30,500.
PMC additional municipal commissioner Rubal Agarwal said, “These squads included policemen and also the civic staff. We had formed these to keep a check on such establishments where these norms are not being followed. We have asked our squad to take action more promptly which is not specifically for New Year but on a regular basis.”
The civic body had initiated action against those who do not wear masks and do not follow social distancing norms and also against spitting. Any offender found not wearing masks in public places is penalized Rs 500 per offence. Wearing masks has been highly recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) to prevent the spread of Covid-19.
With the upcoming New Year season, it is expected that a large number of people would crowd hotels and restaurants like Diwali which may lead to a high surge in the number of cases in the city.
Currently, Pune city has 5,102 active Covid-19 cases and has reported a total of 1.75 lakh cases and 4,572 deaths due to the infection as of Saturday.
