Observing that the State government, for the last 19 years, has not found time to exercise its power under the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000 to categorise areas for maintaining noise levels, the High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday directed the government to give a time frame by August 13 to complete the categorisation process.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka and Justice H.T. Narendra Prasad issued the direction while hearing a PIL petition, filed by the Defence Colony Residents’ Association and other resident welfare groups from Indiranagar, complaining about violation of law by pubs and inaction by the authorities.
Pointing out that the State government, as per the Noise Pollution Rules, has to issue notification categorising the areas into four zones — industrial, commercial, residential, and silence, the Bench said that hardly is there any implementation of this law as the police possess no noise meters to check noise levels.
Though it was told to the court during the earlier hearing that the public can call 100 to lodge complaints about noise pollution, the police on Wednesday said was not possible to use this number as it would give the identity of the caller to the police contrary to the court’s rider that the identity has to be confidential. Now it has been informed to the court that efforts are on to get a separate four-digit toll-free number for noise pollution complaints.
Improvement
Meanwhile, counsel of the petitioner-associations told the court that there is a reduction in the noise caused by over 100 pubs and bar and restaurants in the locality owing to frequent checks and surprise inspections by senior police officers following the court’s orders.