Picture this. It’s a hot afternoon, you’re walking outdoors with a mandatory face mask on, sweat trickling down your face while you look for a short respite. You find it in an indoor cafe with sealed windows, where you are allowed to drop your mask for a cool drink and a blast of air conditioning.
In the context of what we know about how
Covid-19 spreads—indoor
spaces with poor ventilation are riskier than being outdoors—this overturns the logic behind mask mandates, potentially defeating their purpose. But it is precisely how things are playing out in Indian cities.
India’s mask mandate is now over 18 months old, and requires face coverings in all public places. By law, your car is also a public place and despite several pleas to different courts, the rule still applies to lone drivers. In Delhi, for instance, you can be fined 2,000 rupees ($27) if you’re found maskless in a public place. You can also be fined for not wearing a mask inside your car—even if you are alone.
In
April and May, Delhi collected more than Rs50 crore ($670,000) in fines with the support of the police and civil defense volunteers, who have been enlisted to catch people flouting mask rules.
Mask rules give new power to civil defense volunteers
District administrators in Delhi have the power to recruit volunteers to
assist in emergency situations. Since Covid-19 was declared a national emergency, such volunteers have been roped in for things like vaccination drives and enforcing mask mandates, at times blurring the lines between the police and the volunteers.
At present there are perhaps half a million such volunteers all over the country, and 55,000 in Delhi, though not all of these were recruited for pandemic duties.
For enforcing mask use, volunteers wear uniforms that are the same khaki color as police personnel, and carry books to issue fines.
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they aint giving tests like that 
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