Mumbai: Police Commissioner Sanjay Pandey on Wednesday met representatives of various religious shrines — temples, churches, Gurudwaras — in the city and called upon them to apply for police permission if they plan to use loudspeakers.
Around 200 representatives of religious shrines, including from prominent temples like Siddhivinayak, Mumbadevi and Mahalaxmi, attended the meeting in which the CP warned of action if they were found violating noise pollution norms and using loudspeakers without permission.
“We told them about the Noise Pollution Rules and asked them to apply for permission if they want to use loudspeakers,” said joint commissioner of police, law and order, Vishwas Nangre Patil, who was part of the meeting.
Pandey told them that they can use loudspeakers only from 6 am to 10 pm as permitted by Noise Pollution Rules and they should maintain the noise level below 55 decibels if the religious shrines fall in a residential area, 65 decibels if the shrine falls in a commercial area and 75 decibels if it falls within an industrial area.
“We have made it clear that if religious shrine falls under silence zone, no permission will be given to use loudspeakers,” said Patil.
The police said according to civic records, there are around 2,400 temples across the city and only one percent or 24 had legal permission to use loudspeakers therefore others should immediately apply to the police and obtain necessary permissions if they are using loudspeakers and want to avoid police action.
“We want to make the process hassle-free. We will just give them a form and take an undertaking from them,” Patil clarified.
“We want to make sure that the rule is the same for everyone,” he added.
The police have also started taking a count of Churches and Gurudwaras in the city. There are 1,140 mosques in the city and so far around 930 have been given permission to use loudspeakers.
Mumbai Police also held a meeting of automobile manufacturers which was attended by executives from the Tata Group, Bajaj Group and Ashok Leyland to understand the installation of horns in vehicles and what can be done to reduce the noise emanating from vehicular horns.
The commissioner also met builders and contractors in the morning on Wednesday and apprised them about the Noise Pollution Rules and directed them to follow them.
Temples unhappy with low decibel limit
Temples have expressed unhappiness with the decibel limit and permission rules. Hemant Jadhav, manager of Mumbadevi temple said, “What started with the mosques has reached the temples now. They have informed us about the noise limit of 55 decibels. We have requested them to give us permission for a year directly however they have asked us to take permission every month. Our programs for the year are already fixed. Also 55-decibel noise limit is very less as we have been told that a mixer grinder makes more noise.”
“With such rules, we can’t even perform our Kakad Aarti as it is performed before 6 am, at predawn,” said Chintamani Niwate of Shree Dandeshswar Temple Trust from Khar Danda.
“Besides, there are other programs that take place in temples and several musical instruments are played for such programs and it’s practically impossible to comply with the decibel limit,” said Niwate.