GUWAHATI, Aug 7 - As spitting in public places is becoming a common scenario in the city, the Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) has formed special squads to enforce the prohibition on spitting and urinating in public places within the municipal area.
The Corporation had prohibited spitting and urinating in public places on April 19 and punished violators with a fine of Rs 1,000 each.
An official notification of the GMC stated that spitting is mostly done by the communicators travelling by private cars, motorcycles, city buses and other modes of public transport and catching them red-handed is not easy.
GMC Commissioner Devajyoti Hazarika said, �The city has been divided into three broad sections to check violators. Section 1 includes the vicinity of shopping malls, public-related offices, main roads, lanes, bylanes, hilly terrain and others. Section 2 includes market complexes and Section 3 includes parks and monuments, etc.�
�To serve the purpose, six special squads have been constituted comprising the municipal police and the city police. The special squads will keep a close watch in these places. They will carry challan/receipt for on-spot fine collection along with MPOS machine for e-payment. If the offenders do not follow the rule, action may be initiated as deemed fit in coordination with the city police,� he added.
Moreover, each team will identify the list of places in their jurisdiction where there is a large gathering of public, and submit it to the authority. The team will keep a close eye in the assigned location during normal office hours.
Additional Commissioner of GMC Dwijen Singh is the overall in-charge of the drive. He will be assisted by joint commissioners, collector, senior medical officer, and the veterinary officer of the GMC. Singh will keep a close vigil on the functioning of the squads and keep the Commissioner updated from time to time.
To strengthen the drive, superintending engineer Monojit Bujarbaruah has been directed to arrange surveillance cameras to be installed on the enforcement vehicles. Moreover, the Corporation will organise awareness campaigns engaging flying squads and 91 NGOs of the Corporation. They will conduct campaigns in each and every ward of the GMC. Divisional engineers will supervise and train up the NGOs and flying squads for the campaign.
