BENGALURU: With public transport ridership in the city increasing, Namma Metro and BMTC have intensified enforcement of Covid-19 safety rules. Commuters who don’t wear a mask are being slapped with fines.
Between July 1 and 12, fines totalling Rs 2.8 lakh were collected from 1,148 Metro riders, according to the records of Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL). In the period from March 24 to April 27, before the second wave of Covid-19 forced the state government to impose a lockdown, 1,747 riders were fined a total of Rs 4.3 lakh.
“We are imposing a fine of Rs 250 each on those who don’t wear masks. We allow only passengers with masks inside Metro stations. Some people remove or lower their face coverings after entering the station or boarding the train. Our team is regularly monitoring such passengers,” said a senior BMRCL official.
Officials of Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) said that the penalty for maskless bus passengers was Rs 100. “We have collected Rs 53.9 lakh as fine from 53,978 passengers from April 2020 to March 2021. We conduct inspections at major bus terminuses in the city to enforce rules,” said an official. The South Western Railway (SWR) imposes a fine of Rs 250 for the same infraction at stations and on trains. “We received instructions regarding the same from the Railway Board on April 17, 2021. No penalty was collected in 2020. Between April 17 and July 12 this year, Rs 58,650 was collected from 235 passengers in the Bengaluru division,” said a senior official.
KSRTC has not yet issued any circular to fine passengers who flout the mask mandate. “We have not booked any cases so far. But we are not allowing passengers to enter buses without masks. Some passengers remove the mask once they board the bus. Our staffers ask such people to put it back on; they enforce the rule without imposing any fine,” said a senior KSRTC official.
KSRTC continues to book people for spitting or urinating near its bus terminuses. It registered 4.6 lakh cases for spitting at bus stations across Karnataka from April 2020 to March 2021 and 17,100 from April 2021 to June 2021. For the offence of open urination, 6.4 lakh cases were recorded between April 2020 and March 2021 and 32,800 between April 2021 and June 2021.
Some passengers complain that it’s difficult to keep wearing a mask during a long-distance journey. Officials and experts insist that the safety measure should be followed, especially amid concerns of a potential third wave of the pandemic.
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