Clean-up marshals fine 1,380 offenders in 3 weeks, generate penalty upto Rs 3.34 lakh

The other provisions of penalty include Rs 1,000 for washing vehicles on roads, Rs 500 for littering by pets and Rs 100 for burning garbage in the open. Besides this, the BMC can impose a fine upto Rs 1,000 if a person is found defecating in public. The civic body’s record also show that total 917 people have been penalised from A ward, which covers Marine Drive, Nariman Point, Churchgate and Colaba areas.

As many as 302 people have been penalised in in G/South ward which covers Worli and Parel areas. A total of 94 people were penalised in C ward (Kalbadevi, Pydhonie), 54 offenders in E-ward (Byculla) and 13 people were penalised in K/East (Andheri East) wards. Currently, clean up marshals are active in only these five wards.

“Since the marshals are responsible for imposing and collecting penalty from citizens, they have to undergo police verification before they are deployed. At present, the process of verification is taking more time than usual as the police personnel are also engaged in election duty. As soon as the remaining batches get verified, more marshals will be deployed in the remaining municipal wards,” Sudhakar Shinde, additional municipal commissioner told the Indian Express on Saturday.

Civic officials said most of the violators are tourists or people who come to the city from outside. “Most of the violators have been penalised in areas such as Marine Drive and Gateway of India, which record high footfall. The violators are mostly tourists who come to this part of this city and are not locals or regular visitors,” said an official.

Cleanup marshals have been instrumental in imposing sanitation discipline in the city. First introduced in 2008, the marshals were also responsible for collecting fines from those who were seen without masks at public spaces. After the contract of the agency that appoints marshals terminated in March 2022, the marshals were pulled up from streets.

The clean-up marshals were deployed on the streets again after the contract was renewed earlier this year.