National

Pictorial warnings to be tough after a year

NEW DELHI: The pictorial warnings on tobacco products packages, which will come into effect from December 1, would be reviewed and made more stringent after a year. While the Group of Ministers had approved milder pictures only for cigarettes and other forms of tobacco, the government was free to air and publish harsher versions of pictorial warnings as part of the awareness campaign, Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said on Tuesday.

Dr. Ramadoss was talking to journalists after inaugurating a National Advocacy Workshop on Tobacco Control Laws and Related Issues in India, organised by the Ministry, Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and the World Health Organisation.

The pictorial warnings in the second and subsequent years would be more stringent to keep people, particularly children, away from tobacco, he said.

Expressing unhappiness over the slack implementation of the tobacco control laws, he said he expected more cooperation from the civil society and non-governmental organisations. And to make the ban on smoking at workplaces and other public and private building more effective, the government was contemplating to empower the NGOs, ticket-checkers and even headmasters, to challan the violators.

Besides launching a major awareness campaign under the National Tobacco Control Programme, where each district would receive Rs. 22 lakh for creating awareness at the school levels, the government would start 100 cessation clinics to help those who want to quit smoking.

Such clinics would subsequently be started at all 270 medical colleges and 600 district headquarter hospitals in the public sector. The government was willing to extend technical and monetary help to the private sector also. In the next two years, about a 1,000 such clinics would become functional.

Asked whether the government was planning to enhance the existing fine of Rs. 200 for smoking inside buildings, he said he would like to increase it to Rs. 1,000. But it was not possible right now as it required an amendment in Parliament.

Dr. Ramadoss said he was personally writing to Governors, Chief Ministers and MPs to promote smoke-free cities and towns. While Chandigarh was totally smoke-free, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Delhi had assured to strictly implement the anti-tobacco laws.

Pointing out that 5.5 million hectares of land under tobacco farming globally could be used for producing nutrient crops, PHFI president K. Srinath Reddy said India could lead the world in this campaign.

Dr. Ramadoss said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked the Labour Ministry to find an alternative to the beedi rolling sector and provide incentives to those who shifted from tobacco farming to alternate farming like medicinal plants. The Agriculture and Commerce Ministries were supporting this initiative, he added.

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