How do you deal with crowing roosters and mooing buffaloes in city backyards?

Community living needs strong rules to stop one resident or authority from violating another’s space. (Source: File/ Representational image)

A friend woke up to a rooster crowing in the backyard of the house next door. Staying in a downtown premium locality, she was startled at this mostly rural experience. Turns out her neighbour yearned for the good ol' rural lifestyle and decided that nothing could stop him from living that life right there, right then, in the heart of the city. The Residents’ Welfare Association put up their hands and said there was nothing illegal about keeping roosters. A visit to the local police station saw the station house officer scratching his head. Used to urban complaints like burglary and murder, he was at a loss to deal with poultry in the backyard. The complaint could be made only if the noise levels of the rooster had violated the prescribed decibel levels to classify as a public nuisance.

She was not the first to face this problem. On the website LawRato, another harried resident had tried to find a solution to roosters in her neighbour’s garden. Lawyer Sadanand Naik suggested that she could send a legal notice to the neighbour and if they do not comply, she could complain to the police to take steps under Section 133 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CRPC). Advocate Ravindra Prasad commented that because bird droppings cause environmental pollution, a complaint to the pollution control officer under the Environment (Protection) Act could be made.

Good Luck Charm

Another friend in a plush gated community in Gurugram woke up to find a buffalo being milked in the garden of the house opposite. Rather startled, she enquired and found that an astrologer had told him the buffalo in his front yard would bring him luck. So, there you are, she has to put up with the rather big good luck charm, muck and all.

Are there no norms that prevent backyard animal husbandry within city limits? These are unusual situations and the solutions have to be gleaned out of existing laws. Noise pollution is a complaint made by deduction and the residents can make a strong case for it. But the implementation authorities too would find these more frivolous and one-off and the solutions are hard to come by.

Speaking about difficult solutions in community living, have you been faced with a situation where you are paying water charges at flat rates because that area was not metered earlier? Many lakhs of residents in Gurugram, who lived in townships developed by private developers had been paying maintenance charges to developers who brought water from the city systems in bulk to the township and managed supplies. The maintenance charges also included water charges.  But, after the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram was created a few years ago, these townships have been transferred to the city’s jurisdiction. Having never had to pay separate metered water charges, they were startled when the city sent water and sewerage bills of over Rs 1,800 to each unit but never bothered to install water meters. As a result, many residents are now using water indiscriminately because they pay for all of it and there are no incentives to moderate the usage.

Regulations For RWAs

Similarly, the RWAs of plotted layout, unlike in condominiums, have no binding contract with all residents to either become members or to pay monthly maintenance charges. However, the RWA president, (a voluntary role) is liable to prosecution if these non-member residents in the township do not segregate their garbage. This issue was raised by many RWAs at the ambitious Urban Development Conclave held in Gurugram last year where RWA representation was sought by city managers and their voices were heard. Little has happened by way of policy changes after that but the issue was highlighted nevertheless.

Many such issues are now being resolved through citizen activism. In Noida, many residents protested developers procuring power in bulk and supplying it to residents at much higher charges than fixed by suppliers. Associations of RWAs got together and campaigned for this situation to change and managed a resolution of the issue.

Currently, residents of Gurugram are protesting the dumping of garbage all over the city. Clearly dumped by an agency, there is a campaign underway by residents across the city to push authorities to react. After all, no one wants to pay crores of rupees to buy a house only to find piles of garbage being dumped in front of their property.

City management is an art and many cities are completely unaware of it. Community living needs strong rules to stop one resident or authority from violating another’s space. But bringing about change is tedious and difficult, and united action alone seems to be the solution. One would think that civic sense would prevail, but that is often a fleeting fantasy.

E Jayashree Kurup is a writer-researcher in real estate and Director Real Estate & Cities, Wordmeister Editorial Services. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.