Public awareness programmes for keeping sound and air pollution under control appears to have borne at least some fruit this year in the city. Jharkhand State Pollution Control Board (JSPCB) officials claimed on Monday that though noise pollution level was little over permissible decibel count in most places of Ranchi on Diwali, yet it was somewhere equal to previous year on downside. However, air pollution level was something to worry about, as primary data suggested.
The pollution board had installed machines to calculate sound levels at over half a dozen places in city to measure noise pollution level from 6:00 PM to midnight on Sunday. These places included Raj Bhawan, MECON, High Court, Albert Ekka Chowk, Sujata Chowk, Doranda and a couple of others.
JSPCB had fixed the permissible decibel limit in silence zones at 40 during night hours and 50 during days. For commercial areas, the permissible limit was 65 during days and 55 during nights and for residential areas, it was 55 and 45 respectively.
Member Secretary of JSPCB Sanjay Kumar Suman said that noise pollution was found to be higher than the permissible level in many of the areas with maximum noise pollution between 7-9 PM. “We will be able to compile final data by Tuesday evening only with separate data and volume of different gases in air. However, the primary data suggest that the air pollution remain a major area of concern.”
He said that the quality of crackers, its intensity and many other factors worked with the quality of air. “We have issued a number of rules for cracker manufacturing companies recently. However, it might have reached to them after they were finished with the manufacturing for this year Diwali. But they need to adhere to those rules in further production, which will certainly reflect in air and sound pollution data now onwards,” added Suman.
The State’s pollution board and green activists remained concerned over the environmental hazards of bursting crackers. Experts said that not only environmental scientists, but animal rights activists were also consistent since some years against bursting of crackers during Diwali and other such occasions.