Pune’s ‘four bass, four top’ condition for loudspeakers during the Ganesh festival has been challenged by the Anti-Loudspeaker Pune Citizens’ Forum, which says the rule has no scientific basis and could allow noise levels to exceed legal limits. The group raised the issue after taking out a march and meeting Pune Police Commissioner Amitesh Kumar.
The forum’s coordinator, Mukund Kirdat, said the police commissioner again played an audio recording explaining the ‘four bass, four top’ condition during the meeting. Kirdat argued that the number of bass and top speakers does not by itself establish how loud a sound system will be or whether it complies with noise standards.
According to Kirdat, sound intensity and potential harm depend on factors including the equipment’s wattage, sound amplitude and frequency. He said a compact speaker could still produce high sound levels because of modern audio technology. The forum therefore demanded that police consult sound-engineering experts before imposing equipment-based conditions on festival organisers.
Kirdat also compared Pune’s condition with arrangements reported in other parts of Maharashtra. He said Kolhapur had announced a ‘two bass, two top’ condition, while Sangli-Miraj had announced a ‘one top, one bass’ condition. The comparisons, he argued, showed that speaker counts varied between locations without establishing a uniform scientific measure of permissible sound.
The activist cited noise limits of 55 decibels for residential areas and 65 decibels for commercial areas, saying that loudspeaker output should remain within the applicable limits rather than being regulated through a fixed number of speaker units. The report attributes these claims to Kirdat; the police position and any technical basis for the ‘four bass, four top’ condition were not detailed in the source material.
The dispute follows a wider controversy over noise levels during festivals. Kirdat said the police commissioner had stated that noise limits were exceeded at 116 locations during the Dahi Handi celebrations. The forum, he added, recorded noise at 60 locations and found levels above 100 decibels at 30 of them.
Kirdat alleged that police were relying on complaints instead of carrying out sound measurements proactively. He also claimed that the police and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board were not coordinating adequately, despite responsibilities relating to noise monitoring and enforcement. These allegations were made by the forum after its representatives met the police commissioner, and no response from the pollution control board was included in the report.
The forum’s march travelled from Balgandharva Rangmandir to the Pune Municipal Corporation building. Protesters called for a ban on DJs during Ganesh festival and other celebrations, along with stricter enforcement of noise limits and greater accountability from enforcement agencies.
Kirdat said the group would be compelled to return to the streets if the police approach did not change. The immediate next step reported by the forum is continued public action over festival noise and its demand for direct measurement of sound levels rather than reliance on speaker-count conditions.
