Despite the two metropolitan cities Hyderabad and Cyberabad have atleast a number of ‘Noise Monitoring Stations’ to monitor sound pollution, no holistic approach have been adopted neither by the State Government nor by the Police Departments in both the cities to check noise related nuisance being created by the blaring street vendors barging into residential colonies along with loudspeakers.
The rasping loud noise, emanating from the loudspeakers of street vendors, starts shaking the ambient environment of the residential colonies squarely from 10.0 am in the morning. The autos, already having rasping engine voices, barged into residential colonies hanging the loudspeakers atop the vehicles to sell their goods or to collect the scrap.
Complaints are pouring in from several areas that residents mainly old age citizens, newborn babies, patients getting treatment in homes, ailing people suffering from heart and lung diseases besides employees working in night shifts can’t be able to have a sound sleep in their own houses due to noise being produced by these street vendors.
“The street vendors regardless of the implication of their loudspeakers on the residents, especially the old age and the newborn, are freely moving into streets to sell their goods one after another with just a 15 to 20 minutes of gap. We have a weekly market in our colony and if needed, we went to the nearby store or shop to buy things we required the most. Where is the need arise for us to have these street vendors in our colonies that too after every 15 minutes. Leave alone coming to the rescue of the residents, the police in Cyberabad limits are expressing inability to act against the nuisance making auto trolleys simply because they themselves didn’t have proper awareness about the noise pollution and its ramifications over the human health,” Abdul Rauf, a resident of Kings Colony, Shastripuram.
According to experts, the elevated levels or long term exposure to noise pollution would lead to symptoms and conditions affecting human health. This would mainly affect the respiratory and inflammatory systems thereby leading to more serious conditions such as heart disease. People with lung or heart conditions may be more susceptible to the effects of air pollution.
As several international reports about the impact of air pollution on health correlating with diseases and death in India, the issue has assumed greater prominence. However, the major health implications of noise pollution include annoyance, disturbance in sleep, interference with communication and other harmful effects.
Interestingly the Central Pollution Control Board in association with State Pollution Control Boards has laid down National Ambient Noise Monitoring Network covering 07 metropolitan cities i.e. in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Lucknow and Hyderabad. Out of 70 Noise Monitoring Systems these cities have 10 stations each. However, the question still carries an element of plausibility that what serves the use of such advanced gears in the absence of appropriate and deterrent measures against the people responsible for causing such nuisance.
