Noise pollution is rising in the city and in other urban areas of the country due to lack of enforcement of laws. Use of loud horns by vehicles and builders carrying out construction work in residential areas 24 hours a day are making life miserable for citizens. According to recent surveys by the Department of Environment (DoE), the noise level was double the permissible level of 62 decibels (DB) in Dhaka city’s most noisy areas of Moghbazar and Farm Gate.
Sometimes it reaches as high as 200 DB, an official of the DoE told The Independent yesterday (Friday), commenting on a survey report of Poribesh Bachao Andolan (POBA). The report was released on Tuesday on POBA's website. The official version of the DoE survey does not differ with that of POBA regarding the noise pollution level in Dhaka city due to use of fog horns, hooters and sirens by trucks, buses, cars and ambulances.
This, POBA experts said, affects the health of not only the elderly, but also infants by damaging their ear drums. Most serious are hooters and sirens of ambulances and some sports utility vehicles (SUVs) at night.
Hooters and fog horns, which come under the forbidden category on roads, tend to encourage drivers to go for reckless driving, causing fatal accidents and making life dangerous for pedestrians and other vehicles.
The POBA study said the noise pollution goes on unabated in Dhaka city due to lack of enforcement of laws, lax rules and even poor implementation.
Often the police are not aware of the existence of the anti-noise pollution law enacted in 2006, which provides for both fine and jail. Also, there is a palpable lack of public awareness. Many people play music in high volume, without obtaining permission from the police, during nuptial engagements, marriage receptions or birthday parties throughout the night.
Barring religious functions, the use of horns or loudspeakers and mega speakers of a public address system at night, along with construction equipment like concrete mixers and pile drivers, and other noisy equipment are prohibited in residential areas after 8pm.
Supervisors at a construction site at old Elephant Road expressed their ignorance about the Noise Pollution Act.
Even the police or DoE enforcers of the law were not interested in this block of flats springing up fast in the middle of a residential area. DoE and police sources said they could act only after receiving complaints against violators of the Noise Pollution Act. But common citizens do not have the courage to lodge complaints against powerful builders and people playing music at high volume. So they prefer to pass sleepless nights, watching their restless children in bed silently.
Sometimes the signs besides hospitals and schools forbidding the use of horns by vehicles on the entire length of road down from the Shahbagh intersection to Jahangir Gate become the butt of jokes among drivers, with the police just watching in silence.
Certain streets in Dhanmondi, Banani and Gulshan, where use of horns is prohibited, have become the playground of spoilt brats of the rich to drive fast their parents' SUVs, using sirens or hooters at night.
A director of the DoE, preferring anonymity, said they are contemplating strengthening enforcement by the police and their officials as well as distributing newly procured meters to measure the noise level of vehicles and other sound-producing equipment at different residential areas.
These meters—some 200 of them—would be distributed both in Dhaka and metropolitan cities like Chittagong, Khulna, Rajshahi and Barisal. Besides, awareness about noise pollution would be created among the enforcers and people, the official added