Plea In Bombay High Court Seeks Direction To Use Lockdown Fines to Provide Sanitizer Dispensers Inside Buses, at Railways Stations

The petition also cites sanitization measures undertaken by other cities. The civic bodies of Bengaluru, Chennai, Guwahati Coimbatore and Raipur have started using drones to spray disinfectants on contaminated surfaces, while cities like Madurai, Tirupur and Kochi installed Hand-wash facilities, the PIL filed by the Citizen Circle for Social Welfare and Education states.

"Pertinently, the Respondent No.2 – Corporation is rightly imposing fine on those persons found not wearing a mask, but it should also engage in the distribution of masks and also should use the money so collected for installing hand sanitizing machines at all major public places, as the same is a paramount factor to help prevent and mitigate the spread of the virus."

Since more than half of the city's population resides in slums, many have been left roofless, pleading for food on account of the lockdown, the plea filed through advocate Shehzad Naqvi states, adding that such people need to be provided proper sanitary facilities and free masks.

"Right to life as enshrined by virtue of Article 21 of the Constitution of India also means and includes right to a healthy and wholesome environment, and it is the duty of the Respondent – Railways and Respondent – Corporation to ensure that public places have sanitary dispensing machines and also that the trains and buses are disinfected by regularly spraying disinfectants and the down trodden of the society are distributed face masks to prevent the spread of Covid-19 'Pandemic.'

The PIL states that it is not making allegations against the civil body but only it is necessary to ensure that public roads or other public places in Mumbai, either with the help of Mobile Sanitizing Vans or through the use of drones or any other means, are sanitized regularly.

That the BEST Buses and other public transport buses are not disinfected after they complete their routes, which is helping the spread of the virus since, once the surface gets infected the chances of the virus spreading multiplies, and the Petitioner has witnessed that in Five Star Hotels, whenever a vehicle enters then it is disinfected with the help of Sanitising Machines.

[Citizen Circle for Social Welfare and Education vs The Municipal Corporation of Greater Bombay]