HYDERABAD: The Central Pollution Control Board's new rule that all diesel power generation units must have an integral acoustic enclosure has caused concern among consumers.

The CPCB rule — intended to cut down noise level to 75 dBA — was introduced this year. It threatens to spell doom for the DPG industry and enterprising farmers planning to install generators for drawing ground water. Their investment on a generation set is almost doubled with the acoustic canopy costing as much as the generator itself. Farmers feel that there is no point in insisting on noise control as the sets will be installed in fields. Apartment owners are also in a quandary. Normally, in apartment complexes the generator is installed in low-roof cellars. But the standard canopies do not fit into the cellar spaces even if the owners wish to buy the set along with the canopy.

Industrial and service sector units such as hospitals, software companies, malls, pharma companies, the construction industry, which need uninterrupted supply, are a worried lot as additional investment have to be made for the sound-proof canopies. "It's ironical. The Government is not bothered about the noise generated by machines in industries but they want to control only the noise of the generator set," said S. Sampath Raman, chairman of DPK group of companies, which manufactures generators.

It is not only the general rule on the use of canopy but the insistence that the acoustic enclosures be of the type approved by CPCB that is causing disquiet.

User's right violated

"Here lies the big problem. The user's right to model the enclosure's shape and size to suit his premises is taken away. In almost all the industries, the generator is kept in a rooIm away from the workplace since diesel is to be stored. The noise generated by the generator when compared to the noise generated in the industry is negligible. Yet this rule is sought to be implemented, he said.

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