Scores of people are flocking to India's first oxygen bar in the capital New Delhi, the world's second most polluted city after Mexico City, for a breath of fresh air.
For 200 rupees (£2.77) or four times the average daily wage they plug themselves into the bank of five oxygen machines for a 30-minute "refreshing whiff" at the Life Care O2 Bar in the city centre, as a brief respite from Delhi's noxious air into which 2,000 metric tonnes of pollutants are released every day.
About 12 per cent of the capital's children are asthmatic because of pollution, which was expected to rise by 72 per cent by 2010.
Considering its growing popularity since it opened four months ago, the oxygen bar's proprietor, Mr Deepak Singh, plans on opening another branch in a posh Delhi locality and 300 more across the country to help Indians breathe.
According to a recent medical survey the incidence of respiratory diseases in Delhi is 12 times the national average because of pollution, which has also affected 64 per cent of schoolchildren, who have alarmingly high levels of lead in their blood that could retard their growth and intelligence.
India's Urban Development Minister, Mr Ram Jethmalani, recently said he was concerned about the lungs of Delhi. He said the capital was a "dying city" full of slums and declining standards of life.
Ecologists said that despite the looming environmental "apocalypse" in Delhi the attitude of the government and local citizens remained indifferent, and if things continued to deteriorate the capital would "choke" to death.
Although a few non-governmental organisations had made a beginning in tackling Delhi's ecological degradation, a lot more needed to be done before sanity could be restored on the roads and pollution brought under control, he said.
