Pune: Over Rs One Crore Fine Collected For Not Wearing Masks, Spitting In Rural Areas

Pune District Collector office
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Shikha Chaurasia

Pune, September 6, 2020: The Pune district administration has collected penalty worth Rs 1.1 crore from 13 talukas of Pune district. The people were fined in an all-encompassing drive effort to reduce the spread of the novel Coronavirus in the district. Major reasons behind the penalty were the violations of rules like spitting on roads and not wearing masks in public places.

The rural areas of the district are gripped with rising COVID-19 positive cases. Yesterday, the areas reported 925 new positive cases taking the total cases to 20,474 out of which 592 people have died while 13,220 have recovered. There are still 5307 active cases.

Dr Rajesh Deshmukh, the new district collector who recently took charge, has toured 12 talukas so far and have told the police officials to penalize people and take strict action if anyone was found not wearing masks, spitting on roads or maintaining social distancing. He has instructed police officials to fine people under the Epidemic Diseases Act.

Chief Executive Officer of Pune Zilla Parishad Ayush Prasad told The Indian Express that fine to the tune of Rs 1.1 crore was collected by the district administration within a month. The violators were mostly from Junnar, Daund, Haveli, Mulshi and Indapur. Around 16,242 people were fined across 1,408 gram panchayats. The police officials have levied fine for violating COVID-19 guidelines to over 24,013 people.

Prasad said that the drives organized to curb the spread of the virus were intensified in the past five days. I t has been found out that most of the hotspots are located across 69 gram panchayats which are near the highways.

Penalty charges-
· For not wearing a mask- Rs 500
· For spitting in public- Rs 500
· In villages, gram panchayats levied a fine between Rs 100-200 for violating social distancing norms.