KARACHI, Oct 31: A campaign against the noise pollution produced by rickshaws would be launched in a fortnight by the city traffic police

“The efforts in this direction are being made for the past some months and a silencer in accordance with the international specification has been designed to control noise pollution”, said a senior police official in the traffic police department on Wednesday.

He said the campaign would be aimed at convincing rickshaw owners/drivers to use the new silencers, and in this respect a series of meetings with their representative organizations had been held.

He said the noise level of the silencers should be 70-75 decibel (a unit of measure for noise level) according to international specification, but the limit had been fixed up to 80 decibel in the country by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “The present noise level of the rickshaw silencers is up to 110-120 decibel,” he maintained.

The Motor Vehicle Ordinance does not envisage the limit of the noise level for vehicles; it only states that vehicles creating undue noise should be taken to task.

The official said that the level of undue noise was not specified and the law was not clear in this respect. Following the fixation of the noise level, it would be easy to take action against those vehicles causing noise more than 80 decibel.

“A local company manufacturing silencers of different vehicles has been approached and asked to design a silencer in accordance with international specification,” he said, adding that the silencer would hopefully cost less than Rs300 and it would help control noise pollution in rickshaws.

He said a tendency to switch over to the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) from petrol had also developed among rickshaw drivers, which would also help control the air pollution along with noise pollution.

According to the statistics compiled by the traffic police in Karachi, ten per cent rickshaw drivers had got CNG kit fitted in their rickshaws, which indicated that almost 3,000 rickshaws out of 30,000 in the metropolis had been switched over to CNG. He said the design of the new silencer would be approved in couple of days and its marketing would be started soon.

Smoke emitting vehicles: The Sindh Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has suggested the government to impose heavy penalties against the vehicles emitting heavy smoke and causing noise pollution in the city, adds APP.

The SEPA has also proposed the creation of courts of environmental magistrates for imposing heavy fines on the vehicles polluting the environment. These magistrates will be authorized to take action under section 15 of Pakistan Environment Protection Act, 1997.

This was stated by Secretary, Environment, Shamsul Haq Memon, while presiding over a meeting of SEPA here on Wednesday.

The meeting reviewed measures undertaken so far by the department to tackle the issue of environmental degradation in the province.

The SEPA suggested the provincial government to wage a war against such vehicles under its “vehicular emissions control programme.”

Mr Memon said the environmental magistrates would take action against all smoke-emitting and noisy commercial vehicles on the spot and their fitness certificates and registration documents would be confiscated.

Action will also be taken against private vehicles including confiscation of driving licence of their owners.

These documents will be released on the payment of a heavy fine by the owners of commercial and private vehicles. Vehicle owners will also submit an affidavit before the court saying that they will rectify the emission problem and ensure proper maintenance of their vehicles.

The meeting was told that heavy smoke (thick black) emitting vehicles including buses, trucks will pay a fine of Rs1000, while private vehicles, taxis, auto rickshaws Rs750 and motorcycles Rs500.

Buses and trucks with light smoke (grey) emission will be imposed a fine of Rs750, while private cars, taxis and auto rickshaws will have to pay Rs500 and motorcycles Rs300.

Heavy noise creating vehicles (buses, trucks) will pay a fine of Rs800, private cars, taxis and auto rickshaws will pay Rs600 and motorcycles Rs300. Light noise creating vehicles (buses, trucks) will pay a fine of Rs500, private cars, taxis and auto rickshaws Rs300 and motorcycles Rs200.

The meeting was told that before the start of the drive, a large scale publicity campaign would be started in the media to create awareness about the maintenance of vehicles among the owners and advising them to obtain fitness certificates in time.

Banners will also be placed at prominent places all over the city advising the drivers and owners about the maintenance of their vehicles.