In a major development, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has clarified that the wearing of masks remains compulsory in public places.
In order to keep a check on this, the civic body will appoint a new agency for penalising citizens who do not wear masks in public, and tenders have been floated for this.
This development comes as the BMC’s contract with the city’s clean up marshals have come to end. Now, the clean-up marshals, who were assigned the dedicated task of penalising people for not wearing face masks in public during the pandemic, will move to their routine work of fining citizens who litter in public, spit, defecate in the open, and pet owners whose pets litter on the streets too.
Elaborating further, BMC additional commissioner Suresh Kakani said that till the time a new agency comes into place, ward-level nuisance detectors would be empowered to penalise those found without mask, littering in public or spitting along with the Mumbai police.
It is pertinent to mention that there were controversies over the recovery of fines by Clean Up marshals in some parts of the city.
For those unversed, ever since the beginning of COVID-19 in 2020, BMC has made it mandatory to wear face masks in public. However, those found violating the rules, will be fined ₹200. Masks can only be removed in restaurants, eateries, and bars, at the time of eating.
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