Date:26/11/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/11/26/stories/2007112657600300.htm

New Delhi

Students to help restaurants become ‘youth friendly’

Bindu Shajan Perappadan

By making them comply with the Government’s ban on smoking at public places

The drive organised by NGOs, Union Health Ministry, the American Cancer Society
The first phase is to organise an awareness and advocacy campaign

NEW DELHI: Not going by good food alone, students will soon be able to chose from the “youth friendly/non-friendly” list of restaurants evaluated according to their compliance with the Government’s ban on smoking at public places.

In an aggressive operation contributing to making Delhi tobacco-free, students in the Capital have taken on the task of making restaurants comply with the ban on public smoking. School students will educate restaurant owners about the requirements of the Act, and rate them according to its compliance as “youth friendly/ non-friendly” under the campaign titled “Smoke-Free Restaurants Campaign”, phase one of which is currently on.

Tobacco is the second major cause of death in the world today and India is the second largest producer of it. In a move to curtail the abuse of tobacco especially among the young and protect passive smokers, the Indian Government had notified the rules related to prohibition of smoking in public places under “Cigarette and other Tobacco Product (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003”.

“Under the project students from 40 schools in the Capital are in the process of contacting 600 restaurants which will be told about the Act and will be requested to comply with the same. The intent of the first phase of the project is to organise an awareness and advocacy campaign and collect baseline data from the hotels and restaurants by observation and interviews to know the status on enforcement of ban on smoking in public places,” said Monika Arora, Director of Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth and Student Health Action Network.

The project has been put together by the non-government organisation with support from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the American Cancer Society.

“Under the project, students will request the owners of hotels/restaurants to segregate the non-smoking and smoking zones within 15 days, if it doesn’t already exist. In case the hotel management will not be able to do so, in the subsequent visit after 15 days, the students would declare the restaurants as “non-youth friendly restaurant” till the time they are able to provide the required physical segregation,” added Ms. Arora.