A joint study conducted by Cleveland Clinic, Calcutta University and AMRI Medical Centre has revealed that in Kolkata about 40-50 per cent of the infertility cases are due to male infertility alone, which is happening due to inhaling toxic fumes.

The study also points out that specifications essential for fertility like sperm motility, forward progressive sperm motility and sperm volume have all decreased significantly in males here.

It is pertinent to mention here that this teeming metropolis was described the world's third most polluted city in a World Bank report in 2002.

According to Dr Alex Varghese, Chief Embryologist, AMRI, there is a co-relation between urbanisation and growing vehicular pollution and the increasing number of infertility clinics in Asia and the Indian Sub-Continent. That's why it had become imperative to conduct such a study.

Sperm count in males have gone down so drastically globally that for the first time in medical history, the World Health Organisation brought down the standard from 40 million per ml to 20 million per ml.

The recent study in Kolkata selected about 4000 men with standard sperm count but still found all essential fertility requirements down in comparison to 1980s.