Overwhelming response to ‘Janata Curfew’ on Day 1
| Date :26-Jul-2020 |
City thoroughfares, including Laxmi Bhavan square, wore a deserted look on Day One of two-day ‘Janata Curfew’ on Saturday. The curfew is observed to contain further spread of novel coronavirus in city.
Principal Correspondent :
■ Shops, establishments, excluding those covered under essential services, remain shut
■ Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe and Mayor Sandip Joshi take to street, sensitise violators
PEOPLE in Nagpur observed a very disciplined ‘Janata Curfew’ on Saturday. Despite the clear-cut announcement by Mayor Sandip Joshi and Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe that it would be a two-day voluntary curfew and no shops were needed to be closed, people’s united stand to support‘Janata Curfew’ was palpable as roads in city wore a deserted look.
A special meeting of public representatives of all parties in Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) was held on Friday. After the meeting, Mayor Sandip Joshi and Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe said that the city would observe a two-day voluntary curfew to contain further spread of novel coronavirus from Saturday. Some restrictions of lockdown were eased in the beginning of June. After that people took the pandemic casually and kept violating the norms of social distancing. Crowding shops, not wearing masks, spitting on roads became rampant. As far as social distancing was concerned, people behaved as per their whims and fancies. Unnecessary human movement on road, standing in groups near small shops became a regular feature. Instructions by the authority concerned, about carrying parcel home and not standing near the shops, went on deaf ears.
To the appeals, right from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the local body officers regarding following rules, people did not respond. This led to rise in coronavirus cases in Nagpur and around. In fact, just a month ago, Nagpur rural area had no coronavirus case but the situation changed as rural areas also started witnessing spike in the cases. Meanwhile, rumors about lockdown kept doing rounds on social media creating panic among people. But the panic did not have effect on people as far as following norms were concerned. Instead, people kept coming on roads, thronging shops, purchasing necessary and unnecessary items and stocking up those.
This they did out of fear. As Mundhe had rightly pointed out, had they been really afraid of consequences, they would have followed the rules instead of crowding shops. But on Saturday, on the first day of ‘Janata Curfew’, for everybody’s good, people responded to the appeal of authority, overwhelmingly. Except a few incidents of longer stay of vegetable vendors at some places in morning hours, where police had to use force, people shuttered down the shops. Some grocery shops, pharmacies were open, without much crowd.
The response came when the administration did not impose the curfew applying force. Ring road, Umred road, Bada Tajabad, Dighori, small lanes in Bidipeth, Ajni, Samarth Nagar, Gajanan Nagar, Narendra Nagar, behind FCI godown, Khamla, Jaiprakash Nagar, Dharampeth, whole of the Civil Lines area, Sitabuldi market area, Mahal, Itwari, all Modi lanes, Gokulpeth, Shivaji Nagar, Gandhi Nagar, Ravi Nagar, Ram Nagar, Shankar Nagar, Bajaj Nagar, Abhyankar Nagar, Laxmi Nagar, Indora, Jaripatka, Gittikhadan, Pratap Nagar, Deonagar, Ramdaspeth, Dhantoli, Mehadia square, Pachpaoli, Raj Nagar, Mankapur, Shanti Nagar, Wardhman Nagar, Lakadganj, Bagadganj, Central Avenue, Sakkardara, everywhere there was no movement on the road and it witnessed a complete peace.
“People should understand it is ‘Janata Curfew’. It is upto the people whether to follow the rules or not. We had appealed them to observe ‘Janata Curfew’. We never had said that we would use force. People voluntarily closed their establishments is a good thing. We will watch them and if we find, people fail to follow the rules, we may have to come out with stricter norms,” warned Mundhe. Mundhe had taken stock of the situation a day before, on Friday. He had toured some parts of city on Friday early morning to let understand what could be done and in the afternoon, he and Mayor announced the ‘Janata Curfew’.
It was announced in some other cities in State also but was not on voluntary basis. On Saturday morning and evening Mayor Sandip Joshi and Municipal Commissioner Tukaram Mundhe along with their teams visited most parts of city. Wherever they found people in groups, they get down and urged people not to do so, not to gather unnecessarily, not to move outside without any reason. The response of people in Nagpur was total to ‘Janata Curfew’.
On Friday itself, people had stocked the goods sufficient for two days. According to some people otherwise also it was a festival day (Nagpanchami) so people did not come out of home and followed discipline. The act may be repeated on Sunday because of holiday. It remains to be seen how would behave on working days. “Lockdown or curfew are not the permanent solutions. It is upto people to act wisely, because coronavirus is here to stay at least for next two years. If we don’t follow the norms I don’t know whether we would be able to shoo away coronavirus or not but longer lockdowns may hamper financial condition in general. People must follow the norms and have self-discipline. It is the only solution,” pointed out Mayor Sandip Joshi.