the sound of a passing automobile or the occasional honking, the sound from air conditioners, telephone ringers etc. However frequent loud sounds and noise levels that surpass hearing threshold can result in severe health issues – fatigue, hearing loss, cognitive impairment in children and adults etc. As a result, national and local governmental bodies are authorized to regulate the level of noise pollution in cities. Zoning ordinances are one such tool that set a limit for noise thresholds for different zones, and timings that they are required to keep in check.
INDIAN CENTRAL POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD (CPCB) STANDARD FOR ZONE WISE NOISE LIMIT Code
Zone
Day
Night
A
Industrial area
75
70
B
Commercial area
65
55
C
Residential area
55
45
D
Silence Zone
50
40
Source: http://envfor.nic.in/citizen/specinfo/noise.html/
NOISIER, NOISIEST Pata hai bahut saal pehle yahan ek jungle hota tha, ghana bhara jungle, phir yahan ek sheher bangaya saaf suthre makaan seedhe raste sab kuch saleeqe se hone laga, par jis din jungle kata uss din parindou ka ek jhund yahan se hamesha ke liye udd gaya ... [ You know, some years ago there used to be a forest here, a thick green forest, then one day a city got built here, neat and clean homes, straight roads, everything was organized; but the day the forest was cut, a flock of birds flew forever from here...]. These lyrics from the Bollywood film Rockstar (2011) epitomize the process of urbanization. The discussions about cities, a little more than two decades ago, are replete with the effervescent bird songs. The loss of natural habitat is to such a great extent that the sight of common birds has become rare. The first casualty of desensitized urbanization
is the natural environment. The trees are cut, the contours are altered, channels are blocked and local flora-fauna that rely on it disappear. It is required that we build cities that sustain a symbiotic natural and human environment, the benefits of which are undisputed. In recent debates and counter debates about the level of air pollution in developing and developed world and their efforts to mitigate, what is common is the amount of sound that is being generated. A positive thing about air or water pollution is that both of them are visible at some level making it difficult to dismiss them. On the other hand, the perception of noise as an individual experience can be easily ignored, but the sum of its experiences and effect on natural and human habitat needs to be actively pursued in designing cities. Noise has become inseparable to urban living and at the cost of human well-being. The biggest contributor to noise pollution is the movement of traffic – the permissible noise level for car is 82dB. Multiplied by the number of cars at any given point in addition to different other modes of transport and noise from various other sources at any given place can drive up human stress levels very high. In addition, the construction of elevated roads and metro rail lines also significantly adds to the noise at levels above ground. In such instances, high rise buildings for residential purpose are gaining momentum, so also inward housing developments restricting the openness of the built form to avoid the excess noise from traffic. The incessant construction activity of roads, metro rails, buildings, uses heavy machinery equipment, adding more noise. The invention of advanced machines has helped reduce extra human effort in doing simple manual work but made noise intrusions from them inevitable. In recent past the scale of festival celebrations has multiplied, by each year they become bigger, brighter, louder. This is true for our religion of cricket too, even truer during political campaign before elections. It has almost become impossible to have a moment of silence. In attempts to avoid hearing sounds that are unwanted we expose ourselves to sounds we like – often music. Our cities are undergoing significant transformations with least planning and design inputs. We need to recognize the long term consequence of rampant development that has no particular end or direction in sight. Any
June 2016 | CITY OBSERVER
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