Bangalore has ranked second in the list of most polluted cities in India as far as air pollution is concerned, as per a survey. The Garden City has 14% of school-going children suffering because of air pollution. While New Delhi is at the first position at 21%, Mumbai is in the third place at 13% and Kolkata is in the fourth place with 9% of school-going children suffering due to air pollution.

While the lung health screening test (LHST) results were ‘poor’ for 14% of the students, 22% were detected to be in the ‘bad’ category. According to the survey released by Breathe Blue’15, about 35% students in the entire country fared ‘badly’ in the LHST, indicating poor air quality across India. The lung health of around 2,000 students aged between 8 and 12 years was screened for this purpose.

Speaking with iamin, Dr Komarla Nagendra Prasad, senior allergist and immunologist said, “The LHST confirms how much air the lungs can hold and how quickly one can inhale and exhale. The LHST can detect lung diseases and measure the severity of lung problems.’’

The survey found that the worst-affected children are those who commute in open air vehicles as they more exposed to dust particles in the air. In Delhi alone, about 92% of children using open-air transport fared poor as against 8% of those who did not. 86% of school children use open-air transport and only 14% use other mediums of transport in Bangalore.

Dr Vaman Acharya, chairman, Karnataka State Pollution Control Board said that reckless cutting of trees, rapid urbanization and above all, a dearth of environment-friendly laws are responsible for the rising levels of air pollution in the city.

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