With beefed up enforcement, face mask fine doubles in city

The number of offenders penalised has risen to 22k

From making masks mandatory to restricting crowds and large gatherings, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has beefed up surveillance and enforcement measures to contain the deadly virus outbreak that is fanging across the city once again. Owing to this the number of offenders penalised for not wearing masks in public places has increased to more than double from 14,000 to 22,000 in a single day.

The civic body on February 21, collected a total fine of 28.20 lakh from 14,100 people who were caught without face masks in public spaces. On February 22 the fine amount collected from offenders jumped to 45.95 lakhs which was collected from 22,976 violators.

According to an action taken report (ATR) shared by the civic body on Tuesday, around 14,100 people were penalised by the BMC clean up marshals, another 7,911 were penalised by Mumbai police and a total fine of 15.82 lakh was collected. Meanwhile, a total 91,800 were collected from 459 violators caught on various railway stations.

Till February 22, total 33.06 crore have been collected from 16.35 lakh violators penalised by BMC, police and marshals at various railway stations.

As per the BMC data, the highest number of 1,16,888 people were caught without face masks in Mumbai's KWest ward which comprises Juhu, Andheri (West), Versova, followed by 1,00,107 violators caught in K east ward (Andheri East, Jogeshwari, Vile Parle). Whereas the lowest number of violators - 26,744 were caught in the M-East ward, which comprises Deonar, Anushakti Nagar, Shivaji Nagar.

Meanwhile, Zone 2 of Mumbai which comprises of F north ward (Matunga, Sion), F south ward, G north (Dharavi, Mahim, Dadar), G south ward (Prabhadevi, Worli, Lower Parel) has the highest number of violators (2.91 lakh) among all seven zones. The civic body collected 5.86 crore from Zones 2 alone till February 22. Whereas Zone 5 which comprises of N ward (Ghatkopar, Vikhroli west), S ward (Bhandup, Kanjurmarg, Powai) and T ward (Mulund, Nahur) has the lowest number of violators (1.76 lakh). The BMC has so far collected 3.55 crore from zone 5.