Delhi's poor vulnerable to health risks due to air pollution
Delhi's poor vulnerable to health risks due to air pollution
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there are inequalities even in the ways one is exposed to pollution. Researchers from New Delhi, in a study, say the poor are vulnerable to acute health risks from air pollution.
People with an annual income of Rs 0.12-1 lakh get exposed to higher pollution than those of rich households with an annual income above Rs 3 lakh, they say. The effect is stronger if the poor reside in industrial areas; older people and children are the worst affected irrespective of where they live.
The researchers surveyed 350 households around seven pollution monitoring stations distributed across Delhi. The surveyed people were classified based on their income. "The richest category bears the least exposure,' says Vinish Kathuria of the Madras School of Economics, lead author of the study published in the Economic and Social Weekly (Vol 42, No 30).
The researchers also studied pollution from suspended particulate matters (spm) in Delhi where spm heavily contributes to air pollution. Between 1999 and 2003, Delhi's major traffic point ito recorded spm rates of 430