The large-scale noise norm violation on Kali puja-Diwali night was a joint failure of both the pollution control board (PCB) and police, say environmentalists and experts.

“Last Saturday, it seemed that the local police station did not exist. It was undoubtedly the most noisy Kali puja of the last decade,” said advocate Gitanath Ganguly, who had donned the role of high court-appointed special officer to control noise pollution.

Deafening crackers were burst till well past midnight at various places in the city and its neighbourhood. Even silence zones like hospitals were not spared.

Police arrested around 800 people in Calcutta and Salt Lake on Saturday night for violating noise norms.

But that did precious little to rein in the violators, mostly from multi-storeyed buildings and housing estates.

“The biggest problem is that most of the police officers are not aware of their roles in countering sound pollution… So, surveillance is not enough,” explained Ganguly.

According to environment activist Subhas Dutta, police were found guilty of breaking the norms in some cases.

“I found loudspeakers minus sound limiters at two pujas on the Police Training School campus itself. The organisers, all police employees, had never heard about sound limiters, use of which is mandatory these days,” said Dutta.

P.K. Chatterjee, deputy commissioner of police (headquarters), said he was looking into the case.

If police failed to score high on performance scale, the PCB also flunked.

Sources in the state board suggest that the nine monitoring committees, which were supposed to visit various parts of the city and keep police informed about violations, returned by 10 pm. “In most places, the violations started after 10 pm, but the teams had returned by then,” said a source.

According to advocate Ganguly, the PCB’s performance can also be linked to the organisation’s structure. “It has now become a typical sarkari office,” he observed.

But some argue that the PCB has lost much of its control over noise pollution with the weakening of its legal arm. “At present, the role of state board has been reduced to that of a courier, which only redirects complaints to police. It is difficult to operate like this,” rued a PCB official.