Mumbai: The Maharashtra government on Tuesday said that it is not against the HC order’s on noise pollution but changes to the noise pollution rules were necessary. The government said that it was necessary to amend noise pollution rules, otherwise whole of the city would have to be declared as a silence zone.
A division bench of Justice Abhay Oka and Justice R.I. Chagala was hearing arguments on the compliance of the high court order on various types of noise pollution in the state.
Advocate general of the state government Ashutosh Kumbhakoni on Tuesday argued that court or petitioner should not think that the state government is against the silence zones. He said, “We want to implement the comprehensive order of HC in a practical manner. Therefore the state government will determine the silence zone areas.”
He added, “If schools are closed for 15 days then loudspeakers can be allowed within 100 meter of schools. The state also needs to see how big are hospitals and dispensaries before declaring silence zone. Otherwise, the whole city would have to be declared as a silence zone.”
The state government also cleared that before giving permissions to use loud speaker during the upcoming festivals, it will examine all the 1,500 silence zone in the city.
After hearing the state government’s arguments, the court asked, “why the state is keen to give permissions for loudspeaker?”
The court further asked, “What steps has the state government taken to comply with the court’s order ahead of Ganesh and Navratri festivals?”
The HC added, “The state has not provided any data on how many pandals have been constructed on pavements without permission.”
The court asked the state to submit data on Wednesday.
