Urban noise--a need for acoustic planning.

The noise status of growing urban centres of the country are very much required to develop acoustic design and planning guidelines for various land use classification. An attempt in this direction has been made by measuring noise equivalent levels for cities like Delhi, Jamshedpur, Dehradun and Nagpur. The choice of Ldn (Day-Night noise level) which is a better descriptor of noise quality provides an interesting status of noise in these urban centres. It has been observed that maximum percentage of areas in Delhi and Jamshedpur fall under moderately severe to very severe noisy conditions as compared to Dehradun and Nagpur on the noise rating scale. Ways and means are also considered for mitigation of noise.