Effects of COVID-19 pandemic on festival celebrations and noise pollution levels

Abstract India is a country where every religion and community celebrates their culture. Festivals have an important role in Indian culture and are celebrated whole-heartedly by the citizens. Most of these celebrations culminate to causing pollution especially noise pollution due to festivities and rituals. One such festival is Ganesh Chaturthi or Ganeshotsav which is magnificently celebrated in Maharashtra state of India. In the present study, noise pollution levels during Ganeshotsav at famous community pandals in Mumbai city were monitored in the year 2020. Noise level data was analyzed based on indices such as L10, L50, L90, noise pollution level (LNP) and noise climate (NC). Comparison of noise levels was carried out for the collected data during Ganesh Chaturthi in the previous years of 2018 and 2019. The city witnessed simple festival celebration in eco-friendly manner leading to significant decrease in noise levels due to CoVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic situation is an eye-opener for the city administration with demonstration in reduction of noise pollution. Many aspects of the pandemic can be carried forward in making new guidelines and policies to curtail pollution and eco-friendly celebration of festivals.