No Spitting! 270 Punekars pay fine of 150 rupees, also clean roads

PUNE: NP NEWS 24 ONLINE – The sanitation department of the Pune Municipal Corporation(PMC) has taken pelage that they will not let Punekars litter the streets of Pune. The initiative taken by them to stop people from spitting on roads is taking Punekars by storm. As the offenders are supposed to pay a cash penalty of Rs 150 and are asked to clean the spittle off the road in public glare.

According to a report, each of the 270 offenders who were caught by the civic officials within two hours of drive, were handed over a mop and a bucket of water to clean the muck. The violators gave such excuses when caught: ‘I was unaware of the ‘no spitting rule’’, ‘I weren’t chewing anything’, ‘Just something flew inside my mouth’ but none of which worked as finally everyone had to pay the fine.

Starting from just one ward office in Bibvewadi, the PMC had kicked off the drive on October 31 to implement the Maharashtra government’s order dated September 7, 2018, which delegated the rights to municipal bodies to impose a ‘spot fine’ on individuals or organisations who do not comply with the provisions of the Solid Waste Management Rules, 2016. As per the rules, while civic bodies are responsible for maintaining the areas under their jurisdiction, the citizens are also expected to fully co-operate by not littering public places.

From November 2, the drive was extended to four other wards and till November 11, a total of 160 offenders were penalized. From Monday, the drive spread across the city under all 15 ward offices of the PMC.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Sanitary Inspector, Vikram Kathawade told, that on the first day of the drive the PMC officials caught 23 offenders out of which 19 were made to clean up the muck. The idea of making the offender clean the spittle, came to PMC after certain offenders refused to pay the Rs 150 fine amount. So the officials decided that as a settlement they would ask them to at least clean their dirt up.

However, Vikram also mentioned that the drive was spread across the city on Monday, under 15 ward offices. On Monday, 270 violators were penalized in just two hours.