Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar asked commuters to wear face masks to check the spread of COVID-19
Mumbai Mayor Kishori Pednekar on Wednesday travelled in a local train to spread awareness about the use of face masks among citizens in the wake of the rising COVID-19 cases in the city, a civic official said. Before boarding the train at Byculla station on the Central Railway route, Ms Pednekar took a round outside the station and asked a number of people moving around without masks to wear the face coverings, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official said.
"The mayor found a couple of vendors on a catering stall at the station not wearing masks properly. Ms Pednekar requested them to wear face masks all the time and also warned them of police action, if they ignore the guideline," the official said.
During her local train journey from Byculla till the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in south Mumbai, the mayor found several commuters without face masks. "She told them 10 per cent of passengers without masks could pose a risk to the remaining 90 per cent who use face coverings in public places," the official said.
After alighting at the CSMT, the mayor went to Santacruz in western suburbs, where she along with a civic team conducted a raid on a hotel where several people who returned from Gulf countries were quarantined as part of the COVID-19 protocols. Four passengers, who were on the list of quarantined passengers, were missing from the hotel. The mayor directed the authorities to file a police complaint against the missing passengers and the hotel.
According to railway authorities, with the help of the BMC, they caught around 4,500 passengers, including 2,000 on the Central Railway's suburban trains and 2,500 on the Western Railway's locals, without face masks between February 1 and 15.
Concerned over the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Tuesday asked citizens to strictly follow government-mandated guidelines on wearing masks and maintaining social distance or be prepared to face another round of lockdown. Of late, Mumbai has been witnessing a spike in daily COVID-19 cases.