Increasing air pollution affects GDP, personal spending

By Kapil Kajal

After Karishma Mallan (23), a resident of Mumbai, moved to Bengaluru for her job, she developed atopic dermatitis, a form of skin allergy. She had to dole out Rs 6,000 for a test and has to purchase medicines worth Rs 3,500 every month. The increasing level of pollution is causing people to develop diseases, and citizens have to spend exorbitant amounts of money, just to survive.

Similarly, Jasvinder Singh (36), a local resident, stated that his five-year-old son is suffering from asthma. Jasvinder mentioned when his son was two, he used to take him for bike rides across the city. They were unaware of the problems it can cause and never used any masks

Jasvinder said, “Initially I thought he was suffering from a normal cough, but even after two weeks his coughing did not stop, then I thought to take him to the doctor. My son used to wake up in the night coughing and kept on coughing for 10 minutes.”

He has to buy a nebulizer for his son which cost around Rs 4,000 and also spend nearly Rs 3,000 per month for medicines.

There are only a handful of people who can afford the rising medical bills arising out of exposure to air pollution as almost 7% of the population or 63 million people in the country fall below the poverty line.

Nine out of 10 people breathe air containing high levels of pollutants, which include particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide, according to a study by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The combined effects of air pollution result into many health problems like stroke, heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, lung cancer and acute respiratory infections, another WHO study said.

In a 2016 study, out of the 1,000 test subjects, asthma was the most common ailment, followed by allergic rhinitis (AR), COPD and rhinosinusitis. The study concluded that the mean annual cost per patient treatment was nearly Rs 50,000 per year and the most significant driver of direct costs was medications. The highest direct medical costs were in patients with a primary diagnosis of COPD (50% of direct costs), followed by asthma (36.7%), AR (29.6%), and rhinosinusitis (24.4%), it added.

High costs of treatment

In India, lung cancer treatment can cost Rs 3-3.7 lakh. Chennai and Hyderabad will be the preferred cities for affordable treatment, while New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru will on the higher side of the range, according to a health insurance company.

The health insurance company document added that even heart ailments have seen a significant rise in India in the last few years and though the cost of treatment varies, expenses can easily reach Rs 3-5 lakh or even more due to follow-up visits, along with lab and CT scans.

Dr H Paramesh, a pulmonologist and a professor with the Indian Institute of Science, stated that there is a phenomenal economic impact of air pollution in India. He highlighted that in India, 52% of the healthcare budget goes into managing respiratory diseases like asthma and AR, caused by air pollution.

He added that chronic cough owing to air pollution has increased from 8% in 1999 to 22% in 2018 in Bengaluru, and estimates that people have spent over Rs 85.20 crore for treatment.

He mentioned that air pollution is responsible for 70% of the diseases in Bengaluru, so citizens have to shell out lakhs and crores of rupees for cure or management.

GDP impacted

According to a World Bank study, air pollution has a greater impact on developing countries like India, as 1.4 million people lose their lives owing to air pollution, and spend over $505 billion towards welfare losses and $ 55.4 billion towards lost labour.

The study highlighted that adding welfare costs and costs of lost labour due to air pollution puts India’s GDP loss at more than 8.5% in 2013.

The study noted that the investment in a sustainable transport apparatus would bring economic benefits for India. It suggested measures like implementation of BS-VI norms, the introduction of electric and hybrid vehicles, traffic planning and restriction of movement of vehicles to reduce air pollution.

DrYellapa Reddy, the Governing Council Member of the Foundation for Ecological Security of India, stated that if necessary measures to mitigate air pollution are taken, the people spending on healthcare would decrease.

(Author is Bengaluru - based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.)