Mumbai has enough of the honking, and that’s why it’s needed a “no-honking meter” to keep a tab on ‘honking in the city’, thinks Jayraj Salgaokar, economist and also the co-founder of Kalnirnay Publication. Hope so that sounds strange to many of us (we mean petrolheads), but Mr. Salgaokar think it’s quite efficient to curb down the noise pollution on the city roads. And for that same reason he launched a no-horn meter (for no excessive honking) at the India Merchants Chamber in Mumbai.
The no-horn meter is not a kind of Star Wars gizmo on the technical aspect, but it is just like a one any of other meters deployed in the car for various purposes, which is needed to be fitted on/under the dashboard. It will be having the balance system, like a one we have in the prepaid mobile phones that will be depleted as we honk. In short, it means, “now, one has to pay for the honking he will do in the Mumbai city”. The Mr. Economist got so serious about it that he gave a presentation to the Maharashtra State Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan as well, who is stated to decide on its fate of getting implemented in the vehicles of Mumbai soon. And to its addition Salgaokar is also tempted to give a similar presentation to the traffic police officials at Bandra.
The reason behind coming up with this new equipment is that, the economist feels Mumbaikars honk needlessly even during the traffics, where there is no need to do so a lot. He too uttered, the car drivers in European countries honk only when there is emergency, and not like us during the traffic jams.
The meter has non-contact sensors, so fitting it inside the car will not be a hassle and the standard wiring too not to be hampered.
Jayraj Salgaokar got this idea of no-honking meter from one of the cars displayed at Geneva Motor Show three years back. In the making, two IIT-Bombay students also assisted him, but eventually they left him for a job in MNCs. Hence, the publisher doesn’t want a penny as a royalty for the said project from government. He has up-stood with this for the social cause of society with regards to noise pollution.
Saved for the last, the recharge card of the meter will be available for as low as Rs. 250 almost at all the petrol pumps and other grocery/general stores.
We guess, the idea may not be welcomed by the car owners of Mumbai, who are dwindling with the petrol cost on most and the tuck of road blocks being held by BMC for revamping the roads every now and then.
What you take?
Mentioned below are the details of how the no-horn meter is going to work:
- The meter can be programmed to allow honking for a particular number of minutes in a day to be decided by the authorities
- If 10 minutes of honking in a day is allowed and the quota is not used excessively, a green light will glow to indicate sufficient balance
- A warning orange light will glow if the 10 minutes allowed are nearing completion
- On exhaustion of the 10-minute honking quota a red light will glow and the distress signal will get activated so that parking lights start flashing non-stop
- The motorist then must get a prepaid voucher from a PUC centre or a petrol pump to refill the honk-meter, for which a cash payment is to be made as a penalty. On doing so, the signal turns green again
- A new 10 minutes are credited at the end of every day if the limit is not exceed
