Noise pollution levels in

increased rapidly after it became a part of T Sri Kumar, State capital Amaravati environmentalist 04 TIRUPATI THURSDAY 07.03.2019 NOISE POLLUTION LEVELS WELL ABOVE PERMISSIBLE LIMIT IN VIJAYAWADA Health experts warn residents of high BP, hearing impairment, cardiological, neurological diseases

EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ Vijayawada Limit (in decibels) as per the and 55 dB during the night. Emphasising the standards set by Central Pollution devastating effect this level of noise pollution NOISE pollution levels at major localities in Control Board has on people’s health, the environmentalist Vijayawada, including residential and com- said, “Women face hormonal, menstrual and mercial areas, were well above the permissible As per the recordings taken by PCB officials in infertility issues. Exposure to this level of extent in January and February. Health ex- Jan/Feb noise pollution results in dermatitis and skin- perts warned of serious consequences such as Residential Gurunanak Yanamalakuduru related problems. However, they are often mis- an increased blood pressure, hearing impair- Colony taken for psoriasis.’’ ment, cardiological and neurological diseases When asked about the role of pollution con- in people of areas exposed to noise pollution. Day 55 64.9 55.2 trol department officials in controlling the situ- Speaking to TNIE, Andhra Loyola College Night 45 60.9 60.5 ation, Sri Kumar said, ‘’Why should people suf- physics lecturer and environmentalist T Sri fer with health ailments caused due to noise Kumar said noise pollution levels in Vijayawa- Commercial/ Police Control pollution?” He called upon the transport de- da increased rapidly after it became a part of Market Room Junction partment to conduct raids on people using air SPLENDID SPECTACLE State capital Amaravati. Day 65 75.4 77.6 horns and urged the civic body officials to en- Artists performing during Rathotsavam after the third day of Shivratri on Wednesday | P RAVINDRA BABU Recently, students formed four teams and sure that necessary steps be taken for develop- carried out a study on noise pollution using an Night 55 71.9 80.4 ing greenery in the city. ‘’The department mon- android mobile phone application called ‘Noise Industrial Auto Nagar itored the ‘Ambient Noise’ in January and Capture’ in 23 localities including residential, February and found out that noise pollution commercial, and industrial areas across the Day 75 76.8 66.2 levels at industrial and commercial areas were city. The study was carried out in a phased Night 70 72.4 65.3 well above the permissible limit,” said an offi- receives over manner from 9 am to 11 am and 6 pm to 10 pm. cial of the Pollution Control Shattering the common belief that only in- Silence Zone: Day 50, Night 40 Board (APPCB) on the condition of anonymity. dustrial and commercial regions of the city As per the standards of Central Pollution Con- 90,000 Form 7 applications needed to worry about noise pollution, the Road, Vijaya Talkies, Police Control Room, trol Board (CPCB), the optimum noise levels study showed that residential areas like Guru- Kaleswara Rao Market, and are fixed at 45 dB for residential localities, 55 Status of EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE may also be removed from the nanak Colony, Veterinary Colony, Ajith Singh near the Railway station, noise pollution levels dB for commercial areas, 40 dB for silent zones applications @ Vijayawada voters’ list, are calling up the Nagar and Yanamalakuduru are not much be- had increased by 15 to 30 dB. and 70 dB for industrial areas, he said. The of- helpline number 1950 and hind when it came to increase in noise pollu- Overall, Benz Circle registered the highest ficial claimed that the noise pollution was be- AS of now, Krishna district has reaching out to the booth-level tion levels by 10 to 20 decibels (dB), he said. level, 110 decibels, during the peak hours of the ing caused due to the increasing number of received over 90,000 officers. In commercial areas like Benz Circle, Besant day as against 65 dB during the rest of the day vehicles by 15 to 20 per cent. 90,894 Form 7 requests for Speaking to TNIE, Applications the deletion of votes Krishna District Col- received for from the electoral roll lector Md Imtiaz said, deletion of pertaining to 16 con- “We are getting too votes stituencies of the dis- We will take many deletion re- action against the trict. Out of these, miscreants. Public quests and some of over 28,000 requests need not worry them are unlawful. We 13,896 have been processed about vote need more resources for deletion while deletions, we are to enquire into all mis- Not processed around 9,000 have thoroughly creant requests. We been rejected and checking every have apprehended 50,000 are being pro- application before some people who are cessed. So far, 20 cases processing it behind these unlawful 9,299 h ave b e e n f i l e d ap p l i c at i o n s a n d Md Imtiaz, Krishna Rejected against those who District Collector around 20 FIRs have filed unlawful applica- been lodged. Public tions of Form 7 for the need not worry about deletion of votes from the elec- vote deletions, we are thor- 28,753 toral roll. Many from the dis- oughly checking every applica- Accepted trict, afraid that their names tion before processing it.” Tirupati only city in State to be in top 10

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Since Vijayawada and Vi- sakhapatnam municipal corporations had secured the fifth and seventh ranks in Swachh Survekshan-2018 respectively, the survey this year came as a blow to them as they slipped to the 12th and 23rd rank respectively. Tenali municipality se- cured the 90th rank and Ra- jamahendravaram Munici- pal Corporation got the 98th rank. Since 2016, the Union ministry has been conduct- ing the Swachh Survekshan survey to make Indian cit- ies compete against each other in the categories of cleanliness and sanitation. The Municipal Corpora- tion of Tirupati (MCT) dropped by two ranks as compared to last year and got the 8th rank. Tirupati scored 4,025 marks out of 5,000 which in- cluded 1,028 marks for ‘Ser- vice-level progress’, 750 for ‘Certification’, 1,141 for ‘Di- rect observation’ and 1,106 for ‘Citizen feedback’ and ‘ S w a c h h a t a M o b i l e Application’. Vijayawada secured 3,882 marks which included 968 marks for ‘Service-level pro- gress’, 750 marks for ‘Certi- fication’, 1,097 marks for ‘Di- rect observation’ and 1,067 marks for ‘Citizen feedback’ and ‘Swachhata Mobile Application’. ‘’It is a proud moment for the people of Vijayawada. By giving top priority to maintenance of sanitation, the municipal corporation achieved three star rating in the garbage-free city cat- egory of Swachh Survek- shan-2019. We will study the results and improve our rank in the ensuing sur- veys,” said Mayor Koneru Sreedhar after receiving the award. On the occasion, he thanked everyone for their cooperation in getting the 12th rank in the swachh survey.