This is an archive article published on March 24, 2020
Pune: Violators of home quarantine will face legal action, six months in jail, says PCMC chief
The civic chief said 10 residents were served notices under Section 188 for violating home quarantine norms. “We have served notices to 10 residents, who were told to remain under home quarantine but violated the orders,” Hardikar said.
The civic chief said 10 residents were served notices under Section 188 for violating home quarantine norms. “We have served notices to 10 residents, who were told to remain under home quarantine but violated the orders,” Shravan Hardikar said.
No positive case of coronavirus (COVID-19) has been reported in Pimpri-Chinchwad in the last four days, said Municipal Commissioner Shravan Hardikar. He added that the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) had adopted a tough stance against those violating home quarantine norms and would file FIRs against violators if required. The PCMC has already served notices to 10 residents, who were allegedly found loitering outside their homes, Hardikar said.
“Since Saturday, thenumber of positive cases has remained at 12. This means, in the last four days, no positive case has surfaced in Pimpri-Chinchwad,” Hardikar told The Indian Express on Tuesday.
The civic chief said 10 residents were served notices under Section 188 for violating home quarantine norms. “We have served notices to 10 residents, who were told to remain under home quarantine but violated the orders,” Hardikar said.
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He also said the 10 residents were also asked to explain why they had violated the norms. “If they are found breaking rules again, we will file FIRs against them. They can face six months in jail,” Hardikar said.
Hardikar said home quarantine figure has spiked to 1,164 by Tuesday evening. “This is because we have been laying emphasis on testing and isolating people. Those who test positive are admitted to two of our civic-run hospitals. Those who test negative are asked to stay under home quarantine for 14 days,” he said.
Hardikar said the home qurantine figure shot up after they made an appeal to those who had returned from foreign countries to get in touch with us. “The increase in the number of those being home-quarantined is a good sign as we are able to isolate them,” he said.
Hardikar said home-quarantined citizens were being strictly monitored and tracked. “We have formed 100 teams of 250 employees to monitor the health of home-quarantined citizens and take action against them if they violate the norms,” he said.
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Hardikar said home-quarantined citizens were being monitored by civic teams as well as family members. “The family members are asked to measure the temperature of those who have been home-quarantined at least twice a day and maintain a record. They are also regularly being checked for signs of any symptoms. Not only through calls, but also through personal visit to their homes we are keeping a check on them,” he said, adding that 90 per cent of those home-quarantined are people with travel history.
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