After various districts in Maharashtra, now the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has decided to push for a two-day weekend lockdown or a Janta curfew at a district review committee meeting on March 26.
The development comes in view of the record surge in COVID-19 cases in the industrial city. This meeting will be presided over by District Guardian Minister Ajit Pawar.
PCMC officials will place a proposal for the imposition of the weekend lockdown before the meeting. The civic administration is expecting that the District Guardian Minister will give his approval for imposing the two-day lockdown, told Mayor Usha Dhore.
Moreover, the mayor said she had already spoken to the civic administration and opposition parties like NCP and Shiv Sena. There is a consensus among all that the industrial city should go for a lockdown at least on weekends to break the chain of the virus, she added.
Stating that the situation needed to be controlled at this juncture before it goes out of hand, the mayor said that every day, Pimpri-Chinchwad is witnessing 1,800 plus cases. In the first wave, we never had these many cases. It only reflects the severity of the spread in the second wave.
The mayor said though there were approx 1,300 beds still available in the city, in the coming day there will shortage of beds if the situation is not controlled. Hence, Municipal Commissioner Rajesh Patil said that the issue of lockdown will be discussed PCMC administration.
Meanwhile, the civic health department said it has so far fined as many as 39,827 citizens for not wearing the mask. So far, they have collected around INR 2 crores in fine from them. Apart from that, action has been taken against as many 45,143 citizens violating norms relating to COVID-19.
At the same time, as many as 5,286 citizens have been fined for spitting at public places. An amount of INR 8.41 lakhs has been collected from them as a fine.