NDTV.com Jan 15, 2004 (Bangalore):

Bangalore is fast becoming one of the noisiest cities with 19,01,000 vehicles plying on the city's roads.

With 12,000 new vehicles being registered in the city every month, vehicular noise pollution has become a cause of major concern.

A noise monitoring study conducted by the Karnataka Pollution Control Board in the busy MG Road recently found the noise level to be at 89 dB(A), 25 dB(A) more than the permissible limit.

According to the Noise Pollution Regulation and Control Rules 2000 of Government of India, the noise decibels in a commercial area during daytime can be upto 65 dB(A), but in Bangalore's commercial areas it is regularly over 100 dB(A).

"We are hopeful that noise will be looked into in future because it requires interdepartmental coordination," said MDN Sinha, Senior Environment Officer of the Karnataka Pollution Board.

The Supreme Court has already directed the city's authorities to clean up its air ambient quality and the state government has set up a Task Force to look into it.