SANJAYOVACHA | The Silent Crisis Of The Rise In Urban Noise Pollution | Sanjaya Baru
Mention should be made that sustained neighbourhood noise has a deleterious impact on the learning abilities of children and youth studying at school, college or at home. In fact, most urban neighbourhoods are no longer conducive to serious reading and study and the education of the young. How can one expect students to focus and concentrate on their studies when they are constantly subject to noise from loudspeakers in the neighbourhood?
The air pollution crisis in the National Capital Region during the winter months has made this urban challenge a major policy and media concern. There is another form of pollution that has gripped urban India that does not get the media and policy attention that it deserves. While noise pollution was officially identified as a major social problem in urban India a quarter century ago, with the notification of Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules 2000, few state governments are willing to address it determinedly.
The noise pollution rules notified under the Environment Protection Act 1986 aim to stem the rising tide of urban noise through several sources, especially loudspeakers, traffic, construction and public events. The rules acknowledged the fact that noise exceeding certain medically acceptable decibel levels not only disrupt peace but also affect the quality of life and health of residents, especially the young and the old.
The hazardous effects of sustained, repeated and high-decibel noise pollution are many and include hearing loss, inducement of stress, anxiety and contribute to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease. Individuals prone to nervous stress are particularly vulnerable to sharp and sustained noise. Noise pollution also delays recuperation and rehabilitation of ailing patients in hospitals, which is why traffic rules do not permit honking in the vicinity of hospitals. This rule is today observed in its callous breach.
Mention should be made that sustained neighbourhood noise has a deleterious impact on the learning abilities of children and youth studying at school, college or at home. In fact, most urban neighbourhoods are no longer conducive to serious reading and study and the education of the young. How can one expect students to focus and concentrate on their studies when they are constantly subject to noise from loudspeakers in the neighbourhood?
Living intermittently in a residential neighbourhood in New Delhi and in Hyderabad, I have identified three prime sources of noise pollution that have become a public nuisance: (a) Vehicular traffic, especially honking by most drivers; the use of sirens by police vehicles escorting ministers and other senior government functionaries and political busybodies (a nuisance across the country); (b) loudspeakers deployed by mosques, temples and other religious places, as well as by political parties and social activists; and, (c) construction activity.
The use of loudspeakers in public places and residential areas has generally been limited in most cities to between 6 am and 10 pm. Any use after 10 pm requires special permission. This has not inhibited rampant use of loudspeakers through the night. During religious festivals, loudspeakers are routinely deployed.
This can range from loudspeakers blaring music out of Ganesh and Durga Puja pandals to high-decibel speakers being placed in huge vehicles that carry idols around cities before their immersion, or accompany devotees such as the Kanwariyas. The blaring of film and religious music at exceedingly high decibels through the night have made these events a major cause of noise pollution in several cities across India.
Hearing the screeching and often an audibly unmusical voice of a muezzin at a mosque, summoning the faithful to worship, in the early waking hours, one wonders how the faithful were summoned in the age before loudspeakers. In that distant era when humans did not have watches and alarm clocks, the loud summoning of the faithful by a muezzin is understandable. But with everyone having a mobile phone does one require a loudspeaker to remind one that it is time for prayer, time to eat, time to fast?
The unchecked spread of mosques in several cities, including Hyderabad, and across residential areas, with an ill-trained voice of a muezzin have made their calls on loudspeakers periodic bursts of shrill noise. It is no longer restricted to the five times that the faithful are summoned to prayer, with loudspeakers blaring sermons from mosques and madrasas through the day.
It is not as if the penalties for noise pollution are light. Criminal charges can be brought against repeat offenders. The law provides that loudspeakers that are set beyond permissible decibel levels can be confiscated. However, this requires action by the relevant authorities.
My attempt to get the several mosques in my neighbourhood in Hyderabad that have their loudspeakers directed at my home and the surrounding areas to merely alter the direction of their speakers has met with no success despite my complaining to the local police and other influential persons. I even made the additional point that there are two hospitals in the vicinity and the law prohibits noise in the vicinity of hospitals.
When ministers drive around with police escort cars blaring sirens loud, how does one expect the government and the police to be sensitive to the problem of noise pollution? Apart from the failure of the authorities in checking noise pollution, there is a cultural dimension to the challenge. Most Indians tend to be noisy.
This fact was recently highlighted by a directive issued by the civil aviation authorities urging airline passengers to use earphones while listening to music or viewing entertainment on a flight. Indeed, one often has to request fellow passengers to speak softly so that one can read a book or get a shut eye. The upwardly mobile Indian is a very noisy animal. She speaks loudly, laughs loudly, sets decibel levels on mobile phones very high and will rarely discipline a noisy child.
Urban India has become sensitised to an extent to the hazards of air pollution because it is beginning to feel the deleterious effect of toxic air, with the rising incidence of lung disease. However, there is very little appreciation of how noise pollution is also a health hazard. Episodic noise, emanating from loudspeakers at religious places, to sustained noise, of vehicular traffic and construction activity are deleterious to one’s health.
The time has come for a national campaign against noise pollution. Three immediate steps that can be taken and that would immediately reduce decibel levels would be (a) ban the use of loudspeakers at all places of worship, marriages and other social events at all times; (b) ban on loudspeakers being placed on trucks carrying idols during festivals; (c) ban on use of sirens by police vehicles escorting ministers and all other government vehicles, except ambulances.
Urbanisation isn’t just about building the hard infrastructure of roads, flyovers, metros, high-rise buildings, drainage and public parks. It is equally about creating a shared culture of urban living, of which minimising noise is an important element.
Sanjaya Baru is a writer and economist. His most recent book is Secession of the Successful: The Flight Out of New India