Silence Zones

Few days back  Maharashtra Govt vide their notifications de notified all the Silence Zones in the state, and stated that hence forth silence zones will have to be notified as per new guide lines which will be issued shortly by the state govt and no local authorities will have the power to mark the silence zones as per their wishes. It is highly surprising that without issuing new guide lines the earlier  notifications issued by local bodies stand with drawn.

My few observations on this issue:

1.  I think the state govt  have succumbed to the pressure of The Lobby of all Ganpati Mandals , as just before the Ganpati festival all restrictions of Silence zones are withdrawn. So now all the Mandals can play the loud music throughout the days without worrying about near by Educational institutions or temples.
2. Earlier Bombay  High Court had notified that during 10 days in a year the restriction of playing loud speakers can be extended up to 2 hours from the deadline of 10 pm. Now with no guide lines about noise levels at what decibels is to be maintained during day and night time, people can expect very noisy festival season of Ganpati and Navratri. With HC time dead line in picture, govt have already declared 4 days during Ganpati( Aug 26,  Aug 29,  Aug 31 and  Sep 5) when dead line can be extended. In the new guide lines which govt wants to bring, they want to relax the restriction on 15 days in year . This year the Collectors of the City and Districts have been given the authority for giving extensions.
3. I can think one more reason for de notifying the Silence Zones- is it because some people had filed PIL in court for stopping Metro work during night time. This govt is bent upon on getting Metro net work made operative in the given schedule , hence they have done away with silence zones. I think some one has to give a serious thought of installing sound barriers where ever metro work is being carried out at night.
4. One statement by govt is worth pondering over- as per earlier guide lines the area with in 100 meters of any religious place was considered as silence zones. The present situation in the city is such that you will find some temple or any other religious place every quarter KM. With this perception then full city will almost become silent zone.
5. According to my opinion the criteria should be the noise level in the particular zone. Suppose  some Hospital or Educational Institution is on the main road, which is having high traffic through out the day( I can give 100s of examples of such areas in Mumbai City) even if you declare  that area as silence zone, it is not going to be silent as motorists are going to blow their  horns and traffic noise is going to increase the decibels (db) levels.
6. The govt should also prescribed max db levels for all the Mandals of Ganpati and Navratri and they should appoint a separate authority or NGO to check these levels and if found more than the limits, in that case confiscate the sound system and charge the Mandals heavy penalty and do not release the equipment till the festival is over.

So what you say my friends.

Awaiting for your feed backs and comments.