Pune-based activist Vidyanand Bapat, who has led a sustained campaign against excessive noise in the city, has served a legal notice on senior police, civic and pollution control authorities, seeking stricter enforcement of noise pollution norms during Ganeshotsav and action against organisers violating prescribed limits.
The notice has been sent to Maharashtra director general of police Sadanand Date, Pune police commissioner Amitesh Kumar, Pune municipal commissioner Naval Kishore Ram and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB). It seeks preventive measures to control noise, air and waste pollution, as well as traffic-related problems, during the festival. On other festival days, sound systems must be switched off by 10pm. Police have also prescribed a limit of four bass and four top speakers for festival and public celebrations. It also cites directions of the Bombay High Court in Dr Mahesh Vijay Bedekar v State of Maharashtra, requiring authorities “to act on noise pollution complaints and empowering police to stop the illegal use of loudspeakers and public-address systems. The tribunal had directed the police, in consultation with the MPCB, to determine permissible loudspeaker capacity for each Ganesh mandal based on its location, including proximity to schools, hospitals and residential areas.
His intervention comes amid heightened debate over noise pollution in Pune after the city police announced that loudspeakers could be used until midnight on five days of this year’s Ganeshotsav — September 19, 20, 22, 23 and 25.
The notice refers to the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, and judicial directions requiring authorities to “enforce prescribed ambient noise standards”.
