Noise pollution around Tiruchi District Central Library irks users

Libraries are known to be oases of calm as the silence helps readers to connect with books and learning on a more personal level. This is missing though at the District Central Library in Tiruchi city, where constant honking by vehicles going to Chathiram Bus Stand behind the building’s west-facing side, has become a source of noise pollution.

Libraries are known to be oases of calm as the silence helps readers to connect with books and learning on a more personal level. This is missing though at the District Central Library in Tiruchi city, where constant honking by vehicles going to Chathiram Bus Stand behind the building’s west-facing side, has become a source of noise pollution.

“We have no other option than to get used to the cacophony, even though we are inside the library,” a student told The Hindu as she joined her friends for group study in the lobby.

The loud and often repetitive sounds are jarring at Main Guard Gate and Teppakulam, which is home not just to Tiruchi’s shopping district, but also to colleges, schools and hospitals, institutions that will benefit greatly from silence zones.

At least 700 users visit the District Central Library every day, utilising the premises to prepare for competitive exams and other activities. The popularity of the campus and the increased footfall has made many of the study circles spill out on to the corridors in the three-storey library.

The decibel levels on the roads start rising from 8 a.m., when the library opens, and peaks towards the evening. A signboard outside the library’s western side saying ‘No Horn’ goes unheeded, as buses and commercial vehicles trundle by.

Library users feel that more could be done to enforce silence in this part of the thoroughfare, through sensitisation campaigns by local authorities. The public service announcements at the traffic junction here have been minimised to preserve a certain amount of tranquility near the institution. People suggest that the horn usage too could be similarly regulated. “Sometimes we cannot hear ourselves talk as the horns keep cutting into our conversations,” said a frequent visitor.

It is understood that a formal request for a silence zone in the vicinity has been made by the library readers a few months ago.