Much hyped process gets a halt as SMC fails to implement drive on ground
Srinagar, Jan 27: The much-hyped ‘Mask up Campaign’, launched by the incumbent Srinagar Municipal Corporation (SMC) Mayor, Junaid Azim Mattu was only a day-long show in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir as the authorities in the corporation failed to implement the drive on the ground.
Pertinently, Mattu had in a presser earlier stated that those found without masks within the limits of Municipality will be fined from Rs 200-500 from December 01, 2020.
However, sources within the SMC told the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said that the drive has suffered a major jolt here as after implementing the campaign on the ground for merely three days, it got hampered completely.
Reliable sources said that the corporation fined 188 norm violators within Municipality limits in two days (January 01 and January 02) and realized a fine of Rs 37,600 from them. They said that the campaign was not implemented on the ground since then.
The City Mayor, Junaid Azim Mattu couldn’t be contacted for the comments as he didn’t receive the phone call from this reporter.
Nonetheless, his Deputy Parvaiz Qadri told KNO that the process was not implemented after the first two days of the campaign due to the heavy snowfall on January 03.
He said that the corporation remained busy with the snow clearance process, which took a time, adding that the corporation has recovered only Rs 37,600 from the norm violators in the initial two days of the campaign.
Pertinently, SMC created awareness among the masses for almost seven days from December 26 and urged people to wear face masks to prevent the deadly virus from spreading. The Corporation had also set January 01st as the deadline for wearing face masks and had announced that anyone found violating the norms would be fined between Rs 200 to Rs 500.
Moreover, with the halt in the campaign, the people could be seen without face masks once again in the markets, thus simultaneously can accelerate the number of cases again at a time when the daily cases have decreased to below 100
