Nagpurians pay Rs 4.64cr for flouting Covid protocol

Nagpur: Nagpurians have paid nearly Rs4.64 crore as fine for flouting Covid-19 safety protocol in the last 16 months.
As per data obtained from the Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC), between June 2020 and September 30, 2021, the Nuisance Detection Squad (NDS) has recovered over Rs1.98 crore penalty from 46,260 citizens for not wearing mask.
Similarly, Rs70.14 lakh fine was recovered from 2,444 shopkeepers for violating odd-even rule imposed during the lockdown in city limits.
The civic cops also penalized owners of marriage halls, lawns and shopkeepers for disobeying Covid-19 protocol and imposed over Rs1.95 crore as penalty.
Despite paying such a huge amount as fine, many Nagpurians can still be found venturing in public places without bothering to follow Covid safety protocol.
On Tuesday, TOI spotted Mankapur police personnel not allowing citizens without mask to cast their vote during the zilla parishad bypoll at one of the polling booths. However, the situation inside the polling booths was exactly opposite. Polling staff and agents of major political parties sitting inside were without mask.
TOI visited many public places including railway station, Ganeshpeth bus depot, Mor Bhavan city bus depot and found scant or no regard for Covid-19 protocol. Similar was the situation at the city’s main commercial areas like Sitabuldi, Dharampeth, Cotton Market, Sakkardara, Sadar etc.
Even though a large number of citizens can easily be spotted moving about without face mask in public places, the NMC’s civic cops have been penalizing average 15 to 30 citizens a day only.
Sources pointed out that during the first and second waves of the pandemic, the NDS team led by commandant Virsen Tambe had done a commendable job in enforcing Covid guidelines such as face mask must rule etc.