Pune’s Ganesh festival noise pollution report remains unpublished despite Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) spending around Rs 2.5 crore on measurements, while a residents’ forum has alleged that more than 500 mandals breached prescribed limits during the immersion procession.
According to a report by Lokmat-Pune, noise levels were recorded at several locations during the Ganesh festival and immersion processions by the police and the MPCB. The monitoring was intended to assess compliance with noise-pollution rules across the city.
For the monitoring exercise, the MPCB appointed Mahabal Environmental Engineers Private Limited to record sound levels around 200 Ganesh mandals and at 15 city junctions. The report cited the Pune residents’ forum opposing loudspeakers as saying that all 200 locations monitored by the private company recorded violations of the applicable noise limits.
The forum has also claimed that more than 500 Ganesh mandals violated the prescribed limits during the immersion procession. The available report does not provide the full list of mandals or the detailed readings for each location. It also does not state that the MPCB has independently confirmed the forum’s wider figure.
Under the noise-pollution rules cited in the report, the daytime limit for commercial areas is 65 decibels. The forum said that action had not yet been taken against the mandals concerned, despite the alleged violations. It also said that the police had carried out separate sound-level measurements, but that information had not been made public.
The delay has drawn particular attention because the College of Engineering Pune (COEP) has already released its report on noise pollution during the festival. The COEP report recorded an average sound level of approximately 104.5 decibels at the locations covered by its assessment, according to the Lokmat report.
Mukul Kirdat of the Pune residents’ forum said the MPCB’s detailed report had not been published despite a court direction requiring the report to be placed on the authority’s website within a week. The allegation concerns both the delay in disclosure and the absence of publicly available enforcement details.
The MPCB report is expected to clarify the locations monitored, the sound levels recorded, the methodology used and whether notices or other action have been initiated. Until that document is released, the complete scale of the alleged violations and the authority’s response remain unclear.
