Festival Noise Controle

Press Release on October 26, 2003.


Like every year the West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) had monitored noise pollution due to indiscriminate use of loudspeakers and banned fire crackers during Kali Puja & Diwali festivals on 24.10.2003 and 25.10.2003.

A central Control Room was set up at Paribesh Bhawan in both the days from evening to the late night to receive the complaints. Besides control rooms were set up in the Regional Offices of the Board at Haldia, Hooghly, Barrackpore, Durgapur, Asansol and Siliguri.

Details of complaint received in the year 2002 and 2003 in the WBPCB Control Room at Paribesh Bhawan are furnished below:

Year

Kali Puja Day

Diwali Day

Total complaint received in two day

2002

43

16 (till 9.45 p.m.)

59

2003

40

20 (till 9.45 p.m.)

60

The nature of complaint received in 2003 are detailed below:

Festive Day in 2003

Kolkata Police area

West Bengal Police area

Complaint against bursting of crackers

Complaint against playing of loudspeakers
Kali Puja Day (24.10.03) 13 ( Chitpur, Cossipur, Ballygunge etc) 27 ( Jadavpur, Baruipur, Sonarpur, Lake Town, Chandannagore, Behala, Dum Dum, Bidhannagore etc) 33 (38)* 07 (05)*
Diwali Day (25.10.03) 07 ( Bhawanipur, Taltala, Entally, Girish Park, Shyampukur, Kalighat etc) 13 ( Kasba, Lake Town, Rajarhat, Bidhannarore, Sibpur, Titagarh, Bandel etc) 14 (11)* 06 (05)*

* Figure in the bracket for the year 2002

The higher figure during Diwali day (25.10.03) is probably due to increase in awareness among the public about the existence of the monitoring mechanism of the Board.

We have given wide publicity of Hon’ble Supreme Court direction of use of fireworks only between 6.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m. through Electronic and Print Media. We have also requested the Hutchison Telecom, Bharati Cellular and Reliance authorites to send awareness message ‘Say NO to CRACKERS. Celebrate Deepavali with lamps, candles and fireworks.’ to their customers for strengthening the laws and governmental efforts to control noise pollution successfully in West Bengal. The Reliance and AirTel had sent mass SMS to their customers, while Hutch was unable to do that due to their ‘national level centralized corporate policy’.

The WBPCB had worked in coordination with Kolkata and West Bengal Police Authorities well before the festive season. The information received from the police departments showed that 254 arrests were made in districts, and 106 in Kolkata Police areas in the Kali Puja day.

On both the days, the WBPCB mobile team visited various areas and found that on the whole the trend in use of banned crackers is on the decline.

 

Home  Consent to Establish  Consent to Operate  Publication of the Board 
Norms Emerging from High Court and Supreme Court  Public Complaint  Regional Offices  Links
West Bengal Pollution Control Board
Paribesh Bhavan, 10A, Block-L.A
Sector III, Salt Lake City, Calcutta - 700 098

Call us at 1-800-345-3390 (toll free)

Please mail uswbpcbnet@wbpcb.gov.in