THE recent campaign against auto-rickshaws for not enforcing anti-noise and air-pollution laws has received a welcome response from the public. However, at the same time it has triggered protests by the vehicle owners and drivers when 600 of the three-wheelers were detained by local traffic police for not installing the prescribed silencers.
A Rs100/- penalty on detained three-wheelers was not a big deal in terms of severity, but it certainly helped in installing the official silencer!
Though the new silencers have helped in reducing the level of noise-pollution in the city, air-pollution is still something that isn’t under-control in anyway. Of course, rickshaws aren’t the only hazardous-smoke emitting vehicles in the city. However, outdated rules are to bear the blame as well.
According to the DIG traffic police Mohammad Yameen Khan, the city is till Motor Vehicle Rules of 1969 read with Motor Vehicle Ordinance of 1965 which have vague descriptions of the specifications to be applied for noise control.
Rule 158 reads: “Every motor vehicle shall be so constructed and maintained as not to cause undue noise when in motion.” The standard level of permissible noise limit in Pakistan Environmental Protection Act and National Environmental Quality Standards is 85 decibels. According to a study the noise emitted by rickshaws in Karachi is in the range of 93-104 decibels.
Karachi’s traffic police was awakened from its deep slumber when the provincial Ombudsman took a sou-moto notice of the deafening rickshaw-noise And after a clash of authority between the the provincial EPA and the traffic police, officials decided to take action against the polluters.
The number of registered rickshaws in Karachi is 31,000 out of which about 19,000 are plying on the city road. Drivers of the remaining rickshaws have preferred to earn their living in other parts of the province. According to the manufacturer of the official silencers, Iqbal Engineering Corporation, they have so far supplied 15,000 silencers to be installed in front of fitness certificate issuing authority.
A close study of the ‘slow poisoning’ effects reveal that noise is generally viewed as one of a number of general biological stress factors. Excessive exposure to noise might be considered a health risk in that noise may contribute to the development and aggravation of stress related conditions such as high blood pressure, coronary disease, ulcers, colitis, and migraine headaches. Growing evidence suggests a link between noise and cardiovascular problems. There is also evidence suggesting that noise may be related to birth defects and low birthrate. Quite a few field studies have been done examining the relationship between noise and illness. In these studies, noise has been related to the headaches, fatigue, insomnia, irritability, neuroticism, hypertension, hypotension, cardiac disease, ulcers and colitis.
Other than the noise factor, there’s the obvious air-pollution problem.
Pollution caused by industrial emissions and automobile exhaust can cause an asthma episode. In large cities that have air-pollution problems, the number of patients visiting the emergency department for asthma episodes goes up when the air quality is very poor.
Carbonmonoxide (CO) is a lethal poison that is produced when fuels such as gasoline are burned. It is one of many chemicals found in engine exhaust and can rapidly accumulate even in areas that might appear to be well ventilated. It’s colourless, tasteless, odourless, and nonirritating and can overcome the exposed person without warning. It produces weakness and confusion, depriving the person of the ability to seek safety.
Despite the lack of coordination of various agencies, efforts have now been intensified to arrest the increasing environmental deterioration of Karachi. The introduction of an environment friendly rickshaw silencer is one such example.
About 100 of these new silencers are being made daily to meet the sudden rush caused by the traffic police campaign to impound rickshaws with noisy silencers. The cost of silencers has been fixed at Rs500/-.
However, rickshaw drivers have issues of their own. Most of them flout specifications for mixing oil with gasoline. They are of the opinion that the increasing quantity of oil in the mixing ratio, rickshaw engines had smoother operation improving the pickup and fuel consumption. The same reason is quoted for installing noisy silencers which have no muffler to impede pickup. Many drivers of the impounded vehicles by traffic police had removed the official silencer and had installed the old one to gain speed, acceleration and fuel consumption advantage.
However, in the end, complaints from members of the public outweighed the arguments of the rickshaw drivers. The most common protest was that they were plying with rigged meters and picked passengers of their choice. Once seated, passengers were exposed to the rickety noise throughout the journey giving them a headache, rather than an enjoyable trip.
A new twist to the tale is that rickshaw owners, tough have the new silencers, prefer to operate their vehicles on the old un-certified silencers. And when the time comes for the renewal of the fitness certificate, they re-install the official silencer. Simple! DIG Traffic in turn reiterated that regular checks for noise emission, impounding the vehicle and imposing penalties are the only solutions to bring sanity to the rickshaw plying scenario. But he refused to admit that lethargic police officials have failed to nab the erring drivers.
A permanent solution to the rickshaw menace maybe the introduction of taxis purchased on instalments. A proposal has already been tabled in relevant quarters to conduct discussions with a leasing company to sell the required vehicles. But it is going to be a Herculean task to ban the rickshaws in Karachi and replace them with taxis, admitted the DIG, considering the protests and demonstrations that the police may face in the aftermath.
THE recent campaign against auto-rickshaws for not enforcing anti-noise and air-pollution laws has received a welcome response from the public. However, at the same time it has triggered protests by the vehicle owners and drivers when 600 of the three-wheelers were detained by local traffic police for not installing the prescribed silencers.
