Navi Mumbai / PMC: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), has asked all malls in Navi Mumbai to shut down again after they were allowed to reopen recently after months of lockdown. The reason, they said was ignorance of social distancing norms and other related issues.
The NMMC had allowed the reopening of all malls in Navi Mumbai from 5th August, under the condition that mall managements across the city would ensure that safety measures were in place and social distancing norms were followed.
However, when malls in Navi Mumbai did open, there came reports of complete ignorance of all safety measures and social distancing norms, as crowds thronged the malls undeterred.
To add to the issues, it was also reported that many people had travelled from outside Navi Mumbai to be able to shop at malls, further ignoring the rule about travelling between cities.
Taking into account the sheer ignorance of the people about social distancing norms and the inability of mall administrations to ensure safety measures, the NMMC though it wise to shut down the malls until a mutual understanding was reached.
Many people seemed to be unhappy about NMMC’s decision to shut malls in Navi Mumbai once again as they felt that there were only a few cases of disobedience.
Also, people believe that there were hardly any people in most of the malls owing to the rains and that it could have been a few exceptional cases.
However, many people were of the opinion that the NMMC reserved the right to shut the malls down if they sensed ignorance or the rules set by them for the general well-being of the people on a whole.
The NMMC explained thier take on the matter by saying that owing to the fact that malls in Thane and Kalyan still remained shut, there was a high possibility of people travelling to malls in Navi Mumbai, and posing greater risk of spreading the coronavirus.
Also, the said crowd that had converged in malls at some places in the city, may have been such people travelling from neighbouring places.
