Noise Pollution
-  Air Cdre (R) A Wajid Salim, Lahore

NOISE pollution is usually subtle but deadly. It not only destroys hearing ability but also causes tension and irritability which are harbingers of more serious diseases.

Sporadic and half-hearted efforts have been made to check this form of pollution by converting to four-stroke engines for rickshaws and re-designing silencers, etc. For a variety of reasons, not much success has been achieved and this ever noisy form of transportation continues to rule the roads.

The problem of noise gets accentuated by the young who seek thrills by riding motorcycles and driving cars without silencers.

The police generally appear helpless in prosecuting these violators. Aircraft noise is yet another source of pollution which has so far remained unchecked.

In civilized societies, operation of noisy civil aircraft was gradually stopped a long while ago. Further protection for the citizens against this hazard was ensured by instituting airport night curfews and noise abatement procedures.

In Pakistan, where most major civil airports lie in heavily populated areas, no such precautionary measures have been taken. Airlines, other than PIA, continue to operate old Russian commercial aircraft which are exceptionally noisy.

Despite this, the concept of noise abatement or night curfew remains alien to our civil aviation regulators. Just imagine a Russian old vintage TU 154 taking off from Islamabad and climbing out on full power, at night, straight over Rawalpindi General Hospital.

What must be the plight of the patients? The situation is not much different at other major civil airports where flight paths of both arriving and departing aircraft traverse over heavily populated areas.

The ministry of defence/ Civil Aviation Authority may like to consider suitable legislation to check the menace of aircraft noise.●

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