Molecular biologist George Easow’s move to India to start a clinical diagnostics business lasted just three weeks before he decided to give up and return to the U.K. Within days of the family’s move to New Delhi, his 7-month-old daughter, Fiona, was wheezing and gasping for air because of smog. “She could hardly breathe,” says her father.
Fiona was kept indoors and put on medication. Nothing worked. “We had to make a call,” Easow says, adding that her symptoms disappeared once they were back in the U.K. and haven’t returned. For the 16.8 million residents of India’s capital, the wheezing continues. The bad news is, it’s going to get worse.
Cities across India suffer from some of the poorest air quality in the world. The problem is so severe that it’s costing the country 1.1 trillion rupees ($18 billion) annually in the shortened life spans of productive members of the urban population, according to a June World Bank report.
STORY: Who Has Dirtier Air: China or India?
While Beijing and Shanghai air pollution caused by coal-burning factories are well known, Delhi residents suffer even more by some measures, though the main source of the smog is cars and trucks running on cheap diesel. Indian government subsidies for the fuel add up to $15 billion a year. Farmers and truckers, both big voting blocs, rely on cheap diesel.
India’s diesel-powered vehicles pump out exhaust gases with 10 times the carcinogenic particles found in gasoline exhaust. The result: Delhi’s air on average last year was laced with double the toxic particles per cubic meter reported in Beijing, leading to respiratory diseases, lung cancer, and heart attacks. “I have no doubt, 100 percent, that diesel exhaust is contributing to a rise in asthma, respiratory illnesses, and hospitalizations,” says Dr. T.K. Joshi, director of Delhi’s Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health at Maulana Azad Medical College.
via India’s Diesel Fuel Subsidy Breeds Toxic Air Pollution – Businessweek.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 