Noise monitoring stations to come up in towns
Kolkata: The West Bengal Pollution Control Board (WBPCB) has decided to include noise management in its district level Environmental Management Plan and come up with noise monitoring stations with display boards in all the major towns in the state.
"Kolkata is the only city in the country where there is noise monitoring facilities in ten places. Now we are going to extend the facilities to all the big towns in the state," said Kalyan Rudra, Chairman of WBPCB at a programme to pay homage to the departed soul of Gitanath Ganguly, an eminent contributor in the
field of mitigation of air pollution.
Senior official s of WBPCB will hold a meeting with all district magistrates to share the district-level management plan for curbing pollution. The plan involves efforts to check pollution caused by improper solid waste management , air quality management and liquid waste management. Liquid waste released by several industrial units are released into waterbodies causing pollution. The WBPCB on Monday handed over 205 sophisticated sound level metres and sound calibrators to police officials of various police commissionerates. During the Kali Puja this year, the WBPCB had distributed sound level metres to over 500 police stations in the state.
"We will have to purchase another 2000 sound level monitoring machines so that all police stations and police training schools in the state has at least two such machines for measurement of sound limits," said Rajesh Kumar, member secretary of WBPCB.
The officials of WBPCB will organise training session for the recipients of the machines so that they are completely at ease in handling them
The PCB is responsible for monitoring two types of noises — impulse noise that measures the noise of sound crackers or similar things from a distance of 4 m with the permissible limit being less than 90 decibel and ambient noise that we feel continuously due to honking of vehicles.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has asked the WBPCB chairman to take some measures to control the loud sound meted out by sirens used in ambulances. "We are working on it , " a senior official of the Board said.
The PCB had initiated cases for the first time during Kali Puja this year under Environment Protection (EP) Act and was able to rein in sound demons to a reasonable extent.
