Order on loudspeakers has had little impact?

LUCKNOW: With UP Board exams starting from Tuesday, the city is yet to see effective implementation of the state government’s order on removal of unauthorised loudspeakers from religious and public places across UP by January 15 to bring down noise pollution levels.

On January 7, the government had directed DMs and SPs to ensure removal of unauthorised loudspeakers and public address systems installed at religious and public places across the state. The order stated that the sound emanating from loudspeakers should not exceed 70 decibel for commercial areas and 65 decibel for residential areas.

But the directive seemed to have little impact.

So far, the city witnessed removal of more than 250 unauthorised loudspeakers and permission had been granted to over 500 applicants to install loudspeakers. But, there was still a lot more to be done.

Officials with the district administration – the nodal agency to ensure removal of unauthorised loudspeakers – cited the short time span, poor strength of staffers and lack of awareness as a few reasons behind the ‘ineffective’ implementation of the order.

“On January 7 the district administration was directed to complete the survey of all religious and public places using loudspeakers by January 10. It was next to impossible to complete such survey in three days,” said an administrative official.

The order further directed the administration to ensure removal of unauthorised loudspeakers by January 15, which he said was another non-feasible task, especially when the pollution control department — the agency to ensure technical assistance to the district administration in carrying out the whole exercise — is ill-equipped.

The officials said the pollution control department had only two staffers and one sound monitoring equipment to check the sound level.

“It’s almost next to impossible for them to check such huge inflow of complaints against the use of loudspeakers at a time,” said an administrative official.

Anil Kumar, ADM (transGomti) said, “Many illegal loudspeakers have been removed. The complaints regarding noise pollution are frequent hence a flying squad has been constituted to address the complaints. We are ensuring effective implementation of the government’s order.”