SOUND POLLUTION :


Use of hydraulic horn in vehicles is illegal but it is going on unchecked, especially in trucks. The ban has never been enforced and the people are having to live with this nuisance. In recent months when some attention was given to the problem of air pollution and traffic mismanagement, sound pollution was overlooked. The shrill hydraulic horn with its eardrum-splitting pitch disturbs the peace, poses health hazard and even adds to traffic confusion. It is just a question of enforcing the rule. The vehicle owners do not have much to gain from using hydraulic horn and its substitution by the permissible horn will not cause any material loss to them. But even in this case they are unwilling to show respect to the law. And then there are the more serious violations like speeding (it is the drivers who resort to speeding, but not without owners' knowledge) and the plying of defective vehicle.
Stricter laws and intense vigilance tend to result in more income for the law enforcers rather than any substantial improvement in civic life. Although the law against use of hydraulic horn exists, the subject of sound pollution in general has not been considered with the urgency it deserves. Misuse of microphone on roadsides, in markets, in canvassers' stalls is rampant. In every country there is a law to govern the use of microphone and even where permission is given, the prescribed decibel level is not to be exceeded. In this country it seems to be a free for all. At busy street corners the canvassers, mountebanks, and every variety of salesmen compete with each other by playing their microphones at as high a pitch as possible. In the markets and "supermarkets" music shops play their sound-amplified cassettes and CDs at high decibel level throughout the day. This causes a chaotic scene, not to speak of the pressure it causes on one's nerve, auditory system and the heart. We may imagine the discomfiture of one who has to live and work in its vicinity. Yet, no effort is visible to control sound pollution. Neither the DCC nor the DoE has come out with any programme to rid the citizens of the acoustic menace.