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Confusion in Pimpri-Chinchwad on Day 1 as containment zone; police chief says curfew 90% successful

Late on Sunday evening, Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar had issued an order, allowing grocery and vegetable shops to remain open between 10 am and 2 pm.

pune covid care facility, covid care facility pune, jumbo covid care facility pune, pune jumbo civid care facility, pune news, city news, Indian Express The absence of newspapers also added to the confusion. (Express photo/Ashish Kale)

A day after Pimpri-Chinchwad was declared as containment zone, stricter implementation of lockdown failed to create the expected impact on Monday, with grocery shops, vegetable and milk vendors appearing confused over the civic body’s order. The absence of newspapers also added to the confusion.

Late on Sunday evening, Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar had issued an order, allowing grocery and vegetable shops to remain open between 10 am and 2 pm, while announcing the “enforcement of stricter containment plan” to check the spread of coronavirus. However, most grocery shops in the area started operations since early Monday morning.

BJP leader Sarang Kamtekar said though police vehicles were seen moving in the area, some grocery shops were opened from around 9 am till late afternoon.

D G Baliga, a 75-year-old resident of Pimprigaon, said he saw people going out on morning walk. “Since the order was issued late in the evening and with newspapers not being delivered, I think people must not have known about it,” he said.

Advocate Manisha Jadhav of Nehrunagar said, “If curfew has been imposed, there should be a total lockdown. But in Nehrunagar, people and vehicles were moving freely.”

However, the PCMC chief said the containment plan has been put in place from midnight and it might take at least a day for its full compliance. “If it has not happened on Day 1, it will happen from Day 2,” he said.

Additional Municipal Commissioner Santosh Patil said, “While containment plan was effective in some parts, in some interior area, people were seen moving around. The police need to enforce the plan strictly.”

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Pimpri-Chinchwad Police Commissioner Sandeep Bishnoi said, “If PCMC officials find that strict implementation was not taking place in some parts of the city, they should tell us. We will take immediate action.”

He added, “The curfew was 90 per cent successful. There was stricter lockdown. From Tuesday, there will be cent per cent lockdown.”

Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.   Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives. Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees. During Covid, over 50 doctors were  asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa. Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.     Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More


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