CII-Yi launched a campaign called ‘Horn Not OK Please’ (HNOP), which was initiated to significantly reduce the unnecessary vehicular honking and make the citizens aware of the hazardous health issues related to it. The Mission was to create public awareness of the ill effects of the vehicle horns; make as many as possible areas as “HORN NOT OK ZONE”; urge the citizens, corporates and housing communities to join hands and pledge on no unnecessary use of horn; and measure the noise levels in the city and monitor the results.
K T Rama Rao, Minister for IT & Panchayat Raj, Government of Telangana, unveiled the HNOP logo and HNOP App. A Commercial Video was also launched to propagate the concept. The Minister appreciated Yi for taking such initiative and extended full support from the Government of Telangana. He spoke about the success stories of two other initiatives – Raahagiri day and Car Free Thursday and hoped for a very successful HNOP campaign. “Hyderabad is one of the best cities to live, in terms of quality and standard of living and in this context, the initiative like HNOP will certainly add lot of value”, he said. KTR urged CII & Yi to leverage the power of social media to popularize the HNOP campaign. “It is the youth of the country, the Young Indians, who can make the difference by addressing many socio-environmental issues like vehicular noise pollution”, he said.
Mahender Reddy, Minister for Transport, Government of Telangana was also present during the HNOP Launch. In this address, Mr. Reddy appreciated CII-Yi for initiating such a campaign, which is important to the transport sector. The Transport Minister unveiled the HNOD logo (Horn Not OK Day), which will be observed on 12th January 2016 and also the Horn Not OK Zones (HNOZ).
Vanitha Datla, Chairperson, CII Telangana & Executive Director and CFO, Elico Ltd., in her address, emphasised the need to have cleaner and citizen friendly roads, which is critical for the campaign of ‘Horn Not OK Please’ and urged the Government to address the issue. Ms. Datla launched the Yi Pledge Website and became the first person to pledge for HNOP. Praveen Agarwal, Chair, Yi (Hyderabad Chapter), delivered the welcome remarks and opined that there is a need assess the negative impact of honking in the urban environment, which is becoming a major issue. “Through the initiative of HNOP, we would like to have more number of ‘No Honking’ zones.
Poonam Shah Srinath, Southern Regional Chair, CII-Young Indians pointed that this initiative is part of Yi’s Swatchh Bharat campaign, where the issue of noise pollution and primarily vehicular noise pollution is being addressed. Ms. Poonam appreciated the IT Minister for making his constituency – Siricilla, defecation free, which is India’s first ‘open defection free’ constituency.
Chandrashekar, Co-Chair Yi (Hyderabad Chapter), delivered the concluding remarks. The launch ended with a Play by School Children on the HNOP concept, which was organized by Mr. Taher Ali Baig and his team. (NSS)