Around 2 pm on Thursday, a white Swift Dzire stopped outside a construction site in East Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar. Three officials wearing masks stepped out.They were greeted by a blue hoarding with a handwritten message “Kaam band hai (Work has stopped)” hanging at the entrance. The team entered the premises and found construction material covered with green netting, and a few plastic cement sacks that had been left open.Noticing them, the MCD official asked a security guard, who lived there with his family, “Yeh khula kyun hai? (Why has this been left open?)”. The guard immediately covered the sacks with the net.He said no construction work had been taking place here since November 1. “Koi labour ab nahi hai, sab chali gayi. Pata nahi kab aayenge aur malik kab bulayega (There are no workers now; they have all left. I don’t know when they will return or when the owner will call them back),” he said.The officials were part of a joint enforcement team tasked with inspecting construction sites in Gandhi Nagar and adjoining areas. “Today, we have to cover parts of Laxmi Nagar and Geeta Colony,” said a Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) official, who was an assistant sub-inspector-rank officer.Citing historically observed peak pollution levels in November, the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in Delhi and adjoining areas ordered a 15-day ban on dust-generating demolition and outdoor construction activities across the region from November 5.Meanwhile, as part of the Delhi government’s winter action plan, which came into effect on November 1, outdoor construction activities and dust-generating demolition work have been prohibited, except for essential public infrastructure projects, till January 31.Story continues below this adTo track on-ground compliance, joint enforcement teams have been constituted by the government to inspect construction and demolition (C&D) sites, issue on-the-spot fines and track illegal dumping of construction waste.Across Delhi, fines exceeding Rs 1.5 crore were imposed over five days for violations including driving without a valid Pollution Under Control Certificate and flouting the construction ban.In the East district alone, which is divided into three subdivisions — Vishwas Nagar, Gandhi Nagar and Patparganj — challans amounting to Rs 6 lakh had been issued till November 5 for violations of the C&D activity ban. These included two government construction sites in Patparganj.Checking what has stopped — and what hasn’tBefore the Laxmi Nagar site, the team had stopped at a suspected construction site in Geeta Colony. It was a three-storey commercial building on the main road. They found the site locked.Story continues below this adOne of the team members, a junior engineer from the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), checked whether anti-dust measures — a green net and steel sheets at least 10 metres high — were in place to cover the site. The MCD official inspected the area around the premises to check for construction waste but found none.The team went to a garment shop on the ground floor, where the shopkeeper said no work had been carried out at the site for the past two days.The DPCC official said the team identified sites for inspection based on complaints received through the government app and directions from senior officials. “Today, we were assigned sites based on the directions of our seniors, as the number of complaints has come down compared to earlier,” the official said.Returning to sites where work was haltedOfficials next walked into a lane in East End Enclave, also in Laxmi Nagar, where construction had been underway at a house before the ban came into force. Work had since stopped, and the entire premises was enclosed with blue sheets and green netting.Story continues below this adThe team then visited another site in the vicinity. Two men inside the premises opened the door. On seeing the Civil Defence official in a khaki uniform, one of them said, “Sir, kaam band hai, dekh lijiye, koi labour nahi hai (Sir, the work has stopped. You can check; there are no workers here)”.Construction material had been stored inside the premises and covered.“We visited this site on October 30 and instructed the contractor to stop work before October 31. We have come back today to check whether the instructions have been followed,” the MCD official said.“In this area, most construction sites are smaller than 500 square metres. Initially, many were flouting the norms, but things have now improved. You can see that the workers have left,” the official added.Story continues below this adThe MCD official said the team had issued four challans during the first three days of inspections. These included one of Rs 20,000 for dumping construction and demolition waste into a drain outside a premises in Preet Vihar. “We also issued a court challan for burning wood at a construction site,” the official said.“Since yesterday, however, we have not found any violations. People have become more aware,” the MCD official said.The officials went on to inspect five more sites during the day but found no violations at any of them. Their shift ended at 10 pm.