Dangerous decibels

​Visakhapatnam: The city of destiny, also having a tag of smart city and Vijayawada emerged as the noisiest cities in the residual Andhra Pradesh, according to the latest data available with the AP Pollution Control Board and traffic wing of the city police. Jagadamba Centre, Maddilapalem Junction, RTC Complex and Gajuwaka in Visakhapatnam, RTC Complex in both Vijayawada and Tirupati have recorded around 80 decibels (dB) of noise, against the tolerant level of 50 dB.

Most of the noise is caused by the ever increasing number of vehicles in all the major cities in the State. “While human population is growing at 5 per cent, the vehicular population is increasing by 15 to 20 per cent,’’ said environmental engineer of AP Pollution Control Board environment engineer R Lakshminarayana.
Talking to this correspondent here on Tuesday, he said the city has been divided into sensitive, silent, commercial and industrial zones.

The silent and sensitive zones exist nowhere in the State except for Indira Gandhi Zoological Park where an average noise of 50 dB is recorded. Educational institutions, hospitals, courts are marked as silent zones but the category cannot be maintainable as they are scattered unlike developed countries.

Silence zone is referred as areas up to 100 meters around these institutions and declared as such by the Competent Authority. Use of vehicular horns is banned in the zones. The daytime standard limit is 50 dB while 40 dB in night, the engineer said.

Unfortunately the noise level is also high at 65 dB around King George Hospital, the biggest government hospital in north coastal Andhra Pradesh. There is regular movement of vehicles round the clock as many private hospitals, nursing homes and diagnostic centres located close to the hospital. Similarly, the pollution is also high in Ramnagar area where the corporate hospitals are operating.

The situation is same for the schools and colleges which are located in the heart of the city. Environmentalists say the noise pollution has increased in Convent Junction, Gajuwaka, Kancharapalem and Gnanapuram increased due to spurt in the flight services. “Naval jets and helicopters that make routine sorties and increased flight services to and fro from the city is giving a hell to us waking up the babies,’’ said K Chalapathi Rao, a retired petty officer from Indian Navy now living in Gnanapuram Environment engineet Lakshminarayana said it was the duty of the traffic wing of the police department to enforce the law to reduce noise pollution.

“Along with the local body GVMC, they should install no honking, silent zone boards at the sensitive areas and initiate action against the offenders,’’ he said.

However, the Traffic police claim that they are doing their best in reducing the noise pollution by slapping cases against those vehicles using multi-tune horns and using high decibel music decks. “We have booked more than 100 cases against motorists and autorickshaw drivers for noise pollution,’’ said ADCP Traffic K Mahendra Patrudu.