AHMEDABAD: The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) authorities and the city police penalise, on an average, two Amdavadis for defying the mask rule, every four minutes. The city police and the AMC have caught over 18,000 individuals who were moving in the city without masks.
In the last fortnight, public health agencies have caught an average 1,200 cases everyday. A majority of these were from the western part of the city. The officials said that in the western part of the city the maximum cases were reported from Navrangpura, Naranpura, Paldi, Thaltej, Ghatlodia, Bodakdev and Jodhpur.
The AMC officials said that between November 16 and November 23, there were 1,000-odd mask offenders. But since November 24, the number of mask offenders has been steadily on the rise. “The number of offenders caught by the police on November 24 was 1,064 which increased to 1,363 on October 1. This was an increase of 28%,” said an AMC official.
People have begun giving frivolous reasons when they are asked to pay the fine of Rs 1,000. “Rather than coughing up Rs 1,000, people should spend Rs 20 to Rs 100 to get a good mask. Even if they don’t have mask, they can at least wear some cloth on their faces,” said the official, adding that the sudden surge in the spread of the virus may be attributed to the fact that people stopped wearing masks during festival season.