Noise demon invades hospitals

KOLKATA: The noise demon returned to turn Kali Puja into a loud affair at certain pockets of the city. Crackers were burst flouting the decibel limit in parts of Behala, Thakurpukur and Haridebpur in the south and Lake Town, Baguiati and Salt Lake in the northern and eastern fringes of the city.
Even the hospitals were not spared. Crackers were burst inside Vidyasagar and Balananda Brahmachari hospitals.Up north, crackers went off inside the NRS Hospital premises as well. According to green NGO Saviours and Friends of Environment (SAFE), crackers were burst in presence of policemen at the hospital, pushing the decibel level up to 105.
At BC Ray Postgraduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences, crackers were burst just outside the gates, well after 10pm. The noise level touched 102.7 decibels there. RG Kar Hospital was relatively quiet at 96 decibels, but AMRI, Salt Lake, was noisier at 98 decibels. At Apollo Gleneagles Hospital, the noise level reached 98.7 decibels.
“Even though most hospitals had police presence, no effort was made to stop those bursting crackers in and around the premises. Noise levels at most hospitals shot up well beyond the permissible limit. In fact, most violations happened mostly after 10pm, the cut-off time for bursting of crackers,” said Sudipta Bhattacharya of SAFE.
It was a quiet evening to begin with. But it got noisier as the hours progressed. By 8pm, the Lalbazar control room had received 16 complaints, including two against loud microphones. By 10pm., the number of complaints had grown to 60, eventually crossing 250 by midnight.
The average decibel level in Kolkata was 97.3 on Thursday evening. “It was one of the highest recorded in recent years. At the Phoolbagan crossing, the noise touched 107.1 decibels, the highest that we came across on Thursday evening,” said Bhattacharya.
The PCB, however, claimed that the number of complaints received by them dropped to half this year. “Just 32 complaints were received last night, compared to 72 in 2013. Our teams were on the streets till 2am on Friday. Their feedback suggests that the Diwali night was quieter this year in terms of the number of banned firecrackers burst,” said Benoy Datta, PCB chairman.