Alcove

Science, culture, complexity

Tag: Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board

  • Rule o flaw — part III

    Make sure you’ve read part I and part II.

    The project of demolishing the building opposite my house has taken a new turn. As part of the deal between me and my neighbours and the contractor, Monday, November 18, was his deadline to finish the part of the job that required the use of the offensively loud pneumatic jackhammers. The contractor was also to pause work on Sunday (November 17), which he didn’t: the workers didn’t use the jackhammers but continued working with sledgehammers and the much simpler electric drills.

    My neighbours and I also noticed the two tractors that powered the jackhammers were driven away on Sunday morning. We simply assumed the contractor had leased the equipment and was returning them for the day to avoid paying rent. However, the workers continued to demolish the building on Monday with sledgehammers and electric drills. (One of us went over but the contractor wasn’t on site.) The tractors didn’t return either.

    The situation continued into Tuesday. At this point we began to wonder if the article in The Hindu might have had anything to do with it. Late last week, after we’d lodged out complaint with the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), I reached out to one of my colleagues at The Hindu asking if they could help expedite the board’s response. Apparently they did, and they also arranged for the noise complaints to be covered as a small item in the paper the next day (November 16).

    It wasn’t implausible that the people who made the work noisy in the first place decided to take a step back at this point and revert to more peaceable methods. A user named “Joseph” also posted an encouraging comment on the article: “If the TNPCB cannot take action on a complaint already received, then what is the drafted jurisprudence and responsibility of the TNPCB? Hope the lawmakers amend the defective law and permit the TNPCB to take suitable action against willful noise pollutors.”

    But my neighbours and I also began to feel guilty: if that bigwig at the other end of the road didn’t allow the contractor to use an excavator and we didn’t want him to use pneumatic jackhammers, were we condemning the workers the contractor had hired to slowly, painstakingly demolish the building with sledgehammers and electric drills over several weeks?

    Fortunately, Wednesday (November 20) dawned with good news for us as well as the workers: the contractor brought the excavator back. Unlikely though it may be, I’m tempted to think the article in The Hindu also spooked the bigwig. The excavator is currently parked on the front side of the building and we’re all excited for it to bring what remains of the structure down in a day or two.

  • Rule o flaw — part II

    Make sure you’ve read part I.

    On November 15, I lodged a complaint of excessive noise with the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board (TNPCB), whereupon I received an update saying the complaint was pending with the district environment engineer. Later the same evening, someone from the TNPCB called to say he was at the demolition spot and making inquiries. He called back 10 minutes later to say he’d spoken to the contractor and that the contractor had promised to wrap up work with the jackhammers next week.

    Funny thing is what the TNPCB caller had also said: that the contractor was caught between the guy (who’d chased the excavator away) and me, that I should empathise with the contractor and, “as a member of the public”, come to a mutually convenient agreement with him — and not, as I’d expected, ensure that the contractor switched to using sound-proofed equipment or make sure that the guy’s complaint drew further probing considering no other house in the neighbourhood was so rattled.

    Before he cut the call, the TNPCB caller said two more interesting things. First, the TNPCB was currently dealing with a similar but also “strange” complaint centred on Raman Street where people had complained not about the obnoxiously loud machines in use at a demolition site but that the workers there were working past 10 pm when they shouldn’t be. I wonder why this sounded “strange” to him. Second, he said if we wanted “more” action to be taken against the contractor, we’d have to approach the local body and the police, who may then contact the TNPCB for noise data and then decide whether and/or how to act on it.

    I’m sharing all this here in case this is useful to readers faced with loud demolitions in their neighbourhoods.

  • The INO story

    A longer story about the India-based Neutrino Observatory that I’d been wanting to do since 2012 was finally published today (to be clear, I hit the ‘Publish’ button today) on The Wire. Apart from myself, four people worked on it: two amazing reporters, one crazy copy-editor and one illustrator. I don’t mean to diminish the role of the illustrator, especially in setting the piece’s mood quite well, but only that the reporters and the copy-editor did a stupendous job of getting the story from 0 to 1. After all, all I’d had was an idea.

    The INO’s is a great story but stands unfortunately to become a depressing parable at the moment – the biggest bug yet in a spider’s web spun of bureaucracy and misinformation. As told on The Wire, the INO is India’s most badass science experiment yet but its inherent sophistication has become its strength and weakness: a strength for being able yield cutting-edge scientific, a weakness for being the ideal target of stubborn activism, unreason and, consequently and understandably, fatigue on the part of the physicists.

    Here on out, it doesn’t look like the INO will get built by 2020, and it doesn’t look like it will be the same thing it started out as when it does get built. Am I disappointed by that? Of course – and bad question. I’m rooting for the experiment, yes? I’m not sure – and much better question. In the last few years, in which the project’s plans gained momentum, some unreasonable activists were able to cash in on the Department of Atomic Energy’s generally cold-blooded way of dealing with disagreement (the DAE is funding the INO). At the same time, the INO collaboration wasn’t as diligent as it ought to have been with the environmental impact assessment report (getting it compiled by a non-accredited agency). Finally, the DAE itself just stood back and watched as the scientists and activists battled it out.

    Who lost? Take a guess. I hope the next Big Science experiment fares better (I’m probably not referring to LIGO because it has a far stronger global/American impetus while the INO is completely indigenously motivated).