New Delhi: The National Green Tribunal Tuesday directed the Delhi government to submit within two weeks an action plan on reduction of noise pollution caused due to heavy traffic near Panchsheel Park area in South Delhi.
"NCT Delhi will ensure that action plan to execute the recommendations by IIT, Roorkee (short, mid and long term measures) to control noise level is submitted within two weeks from today.
"The Delhi government will file specific comments after consulting all the officers, South Delhi Municipal Corporation, Delhi Pollution Control Committee and other concerned," a bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said.
The directions came while hearing a petition of Omesh Saigal, a resident of Panchsheel Park, who alleged that noise pollution, generated due to heavy traffic flow on the Outer Ring road, was affecting the health of the people living in the area.
He told the tribunal that despite repeated assurances, the government has not come out with any action plan on the suggestions by IIT-Roorkee to curb the menace of noise pollution in the area.
The tribunal then asked the Delhi government to resolve the issue and devise an "effective" solution by taking into account the views of all stakeholders.
"Why don't your officers sit down with the residents of the area and work together? Do something constructive. Why are you forcing us to pass orders which you can't implement?
"See, don't try to correct entire Delhi at one go. Choose individual areas and work on them first. Deploy large force," the bench said.
Regarding challans, the Delhi government told the green bench that traffic police has placed speed interceptor vehicles at all the strategic locations to book over-speeding vehicles.
The city government informed that a total of 3,120 vehicles were challaned for over-speeding by speed interceptors and an amount of Rs 12,48,000 was collected.
All the challans were carried out from Panchsheel flyover to Chirag Delhi Flyover for the period starting March 12 to August 28, 2015. For lane changing, 1,100 vehicles were challaned while a total of Rs 4,95,000 was recovered from vehicles challaned for improper parking.
Earlier, the green bench had declared South Delhi's Panchsheel Park area as a "silence zone" and confined the speed of vehicles in the area to 30 km per hour.
It had asked individual house owners to strengthen the windows facing the road with noise cutting material to reduce the noise level inside their houses and also develop adequate vegetative barriers.
The tribunal had also directed the police to prevent overloaded vehicles from entering the area and banned use of pressure horns in the area.
"The police shall take steps to install speed cameras to monitor speed of the vehicles and immediately challan the violators. Till such steps for installation of camera are completed, the police shall act scrupulously to prevent over speeding of vehicles," it had said.
