Kolkata has upstaged Delhi as the air pollution capital of India, accounting for more deaths due to lung cancer and heart attack than the capital city.
KOLKATA: Kolkata has upstaged Delhi as the air pollution capital of India, accounting for more deaths due to lung cancer and heart attack than the capital city.
More than 18 persons in a lakh fall victim to lung cancer every year in Kolkata compared to the next highest 13 per one lakh in Delhi, according to environmental scientist and advisor of Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI), Twisha Lahiri.
Not only lung cancer, cases of heart attack were also rising fast in the eastern metropolis, Lahiri said quoting a six-year survey conducted by the cancer institute.
She said incidents of heart attack were occurring more frequently in the city.
CNCI scientists maintain that more than seven in 10 people here suffer from various kinds of respiratory disorder, including children as well as elderly people. Lahiri said roadside hawkers, shopowners, traffic policemen, auto-rickshaw drivers, rickshaw-pullers and others who spend long hours on the road were the most vulnerable.
Children mainly suffer from breathing difficulties like asthma while elderly people are victims of lung cancer, the scientists said.
Lahiri said air pollution was increasing due to the rapid increase in vehicular population and because of the ageing fleet of buses, which need to be discarded.
Nearly 80% of the buses and trucks and nearly half of the taxis and auto-rickshaws will have to be pulled off the roads to clean city’s air, environmentalists felt. “What we need is immediate introduction of CNG or LPG-driven buses, strict monitoring auto-rickshaws which run on adulterated fuel and withdrawal of old buses belching toxic fumes,” she said.
“The city’s average SPM count was 343 and RPM count was 181 respectively this winter. Ideally it should have been 140 and 60 respectively. The level of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide were also much above normal level,” Pollution Control Board Officials said.
Environmentalist Subhas Dutta filed a PIL in the Calcutta high court alleging the Bengal government was sitting idle on controlling air pollution level.
“After a series of petitions and court rulings, very little was done to curb the killer pollution. That is inadequate and the fight will continue,” Dutta said.
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