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'Anti-tobacco campaign will continue'

By Our Special Correspondent

Kolkata Nov. 8. The Union Health Minister, Shatrughan Sinha, today said the Centre would continue with its campaign against tobacco despite pressures from the powerful tobacco lobby. "The day I gave up cigarettes, I started a campaign against the use of tobacco and drugs,'' Mr. Sinha said after laying the foundation stone for a radiotherapy unit at the Subodh Mitra Cancer Research Centre at Salt Lake here.

Mr. Sinha said he was receiving letters almost everyday threatening him with dire consequences if he continued with the anti-tobacco campaign. "They said that I would lose my office if I did not give in to their pressures. But the Ministership is not everything to me.''

He said certain quarters were opposed to the anti-tobacco campaign saying that tobacco brought in revenue. "If I may ask, how much revenue? May be a few hundred crores of rupees? But the Government spends at least Rs. 1450 crores a year to treat tobacco-related diseases.''

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