RITH BASU Only the dog seems to be paying attention to the words written on Chittaranjan Avenue. Constant honking by drivers on the stretch disturbs patients in Medical College and Hospital and students in educational institutions in the area. An orchestra of air horns, loudspeakers blaring at street-corners, the growl of engines and slogans from passing processions often drown the voices of teachers in classrooms on either side of College Street. Microphones have been installed in the English department classrooms of Calcutta University (CU) but students still fail to decipher what the professors say because of soaring decibel levels on and off the campus. Students and teachers of Presidency College, Medical College and Hospital, Sanskrit College, Hare School, Hindu School and some other educational institutions in the area face similar problems. But a 100-metre radius around each campus is supposed to be a silence zone under the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and the Noise (Pollution and Control) Rules, 2000, said Biswajit Mukherjee, the member secretary of the state noise pollution monitoring committee. The rules are seldom followed.