Ahmedabad: Paan shops pay Rs 14 lakh in fines

AHMEDABAD: The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) collected fines totalling Rs 14 lakh on Tuesday from paan shops that had been sealed for not enforcing social distancing or over spitting by customers.
The AMC had on July 13 had increased the penalty for not wearing masks to Rs 500 and decided that those paan shops where social distancing was not maintained or where customers were spitting in public would be fined Rs 10,000.The AMC on Monday decided to open the seals after collecting the fines.

Harshad Solanki of the AMC said the most fines was collected from paan shops in the West Zone, comprising Navrangpura, Naranpura, Paldi, Vasna and Vadaj, and the North Zone (Naroda, Meghaninagar, Thakkarnagar and Saraspur). Paan shops in these two zones paid fines worth over Rs 7 lakh. Solanki said that ever since the fine was increased, the number of people caught without masks has gone down. On Tuesday, only 291 persons were fined.