Every morning, six-year-old Zarif Ahmed Ayan must endure the city’s relentless noise even before he reaches his classroom.
Accompanied by his mother, he rides a rickshaw to school through the rush-hour traffic at Mirpur-10, surrounded by a stream of buses, motorbikes and cars.
When honking begins, and it always does, he presses his palms against his ears and cups them tightly, trying to shut out the cacophony around him.
“Whenever there is loud honking, he gets uncomfortable. He covers both ears and becomes anxious,” said his mother, Raj Nusrat, a homemaker.
Ayan is not alone. An entire generation of children is growing up in Dhaka city, where severe noise pollution remains a persistent problem amid lax enforcement of the rules.
While many adults have learned to live with the relentless din, health experts warn that children cannot simply tune it out.
For young minds and bodies still developing, the damage may run far deeper, shaping their wellbeing, behaviour and ability to learn in ways that can last a lifetime.
Fuelled by relentless traffic, construction and industrial operations, Dhaka’s noise pollution has spread far beyond a few notorious intersections with constant honking dominating the city’s soundscape amid a steady rise in vehicle numbers.
Noise levels routinely exceed national permissible limits in almost all areas, from the bustling intersections of Farmgate and Karwan Bazar to the bus terminals of Mohakhali and Gabtoli, from Motijheel’s commercial heart to the school-filled streets of Dhanmondi and the hospital precincts of Shahbagh.
The Noise Pollution (Control) Rules, 2025, set permissible limits for different zones: 50 decibels -- a measure of the intensity or loudness of sound -- in silent zones, 55 in residential areas, and 70 in commercial zones. The rules, however, remain poorly enforced.
Monitoring data collected by the Centre for Atmospheric Pollution Studies (CAPS) at Stamford University Bangladesh in 2024 showed that impulse noise -- sudden, short bursts of sound -- reached levels as high as 130 decibels in parts of the capital.
For comparison, a jet engine at close range produces around 140 decibels, while a gunshot can reach between 140 and 160 decibels.
The CAPS study found that noise levels in several busy traffic corridors and major intersections, including areas around the Secretariat, Farmgate, Shahbagh and Gulistan, frequently exceeded permissible limits, with vehicle horns identified as one of the main sources of excessive noise.
The World Health Organization recommends that average road traffic noise should not exceed 53 decibels during the day and 45 decibels at night to avoid adverse health consequences. It identifies environmental noise as one of the most significant health hazards globally, second only to air pollution.
Continuous exposure to sound levels exceeding 70 decibels over a 24-hour period may increase the risk of hearing damage, according to the WHO.
In May 2024, the Department of Environment (DoE) recorded vehicles honking an average of 19 times per minute during morning rush hours at Shahbagh even though the area has been designated as a silent zone. At some locations, more than 900 horn blasts were counted in a short span of 10 minutes.
Children’s ears simply cannot handle this.
“Children are more vulnerable than adults because their hearing system and cognitive abilities are still developing,” said Md Mahbubul Hoque, professor of Neonatal and Paediatric Medicine at Bangladesh Shishu Hospital and Institute.
Continuous exposure to traffic noise at these levels can disrupt sleep, heighten irritability and undermine a child’s capacity to concentrate. Over time, it influences children’s learning processes, he said.
Elaborating further, Mahjabeen Haque, professor of educational and counselling psychology at Dhaka University, said, “When children are interrupted by loud horns again and again, it becomes difficult for them to regain focus.”
Each interruption does more than momentarily distract a child, it forces the brain to start over. For young learners who are already putting more mental efforts than adults to absorb and retain information, repeated disruptions throughout the day can lead to a significant learning deficit, she said.
Beyond focus, Mahjabeen explained, constant noise exposure can trigger anxiety, stress, headaches, sleep disturbance, irritability and behavioural changes.
The problem is especially acute around schools in neighbourhoods like Dhanmondi, Mirpur and Mohammadpur which experience persistent gridlocks during their opening and closing hours. All sorts of vehicles compete for limited road space, leaving many drivers trapped in traffic. Their response is relentless honking.
“What is most worrying is that excessive honking has become the new normal. We have reached a point where people are barely bothered by it anymore, despite the harm it is causing children every day,” said Shabnur Sultana, whose two children study at an English-medium school in Dhanmondi.
Md Rajob Ali, head teacher of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar Government Girls’ High School in Dhaka, said vehicles park indiscriminately near school gates, creating congestion that drivers attempt to resolve by repeatedly sounding their horns.
“During opening and closing hours, the street outside my school becomes one of the noisiest stretches for children to cross,” he said.
Taifa Hossain, a Class IV student at Uttara IES School and College, often returns home with a headache. Her younger brother also suffers from the same problem.
“Both my children have grown irritable and often struggle to sleep,” said their father Mobarak Hossain, an architect.
Asked why drivers honk horns, Mohammad Abdul Hannan, an auto-rickshaw driver, told The Daily Star, “I don’t honk unless it’s necessary. If a vehicle in front isn’t moving or a rickshaw doesn’t give way, I use the horn to alert them and avoid an accident.”
The Noise Pollution (Control) Rules, updated in November last year, restrict unnecessary honking in residential areas and ban night-time honking in designated quiet zones. Police have been empowered to penalise violators but enforcement of the rules has been lax.
Experts warn that the rules will remain mere words on paper unless those are properly enforced. They stress that public awareness campaigns are just as crucial as enforcement.
“Laws alone cannot solve this problem. People need to understand that unnecessary honking harms children’s health and wellbeing. Unless citizens themselves change their behaviour, noise pollution will continue,” said Mahjabeen.
Prof Adil Mohammed Khan, executive director of the Institute for Planning and Development, said dense, mixed-traffic conditions and continuous gridlocks lead to excessive honking while a large portion of general public remains unaware of permitted decibel limits and complaint procedures.
“The rules must be enforced strictly through coordinated efforts by all relevant ministries, departments and agencies. Discipline must be ensured on the roads as well.”
When contacted, State Minister for Environment Shaikh Faridul Islam said, “The government plans to launch a mass public awareness campaign on noise pollution. It is also exploring the option of introducing automated cameras to detect vehicles honking at intersections though costs remain a hurdle.
“We are looking for a cheaper version of these cameras. If we can procure them, they will be installed at the city’s busiest intersections,” he added.
