Soon office spaces, commercial buildings, hotels, restaurants and airports will be made smoke-free. That’s if Union Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has his way.
“The provision is already there in the Tobacco Act, we will implement it stringently,” Mr Ramadoss said after accepting a WHO award on Friday.
For smokers this leaves only the roads and houses as places where they can take a puff. But according to Dr Ramadoss even the household is a workplace.
“It is a workplace for the maid and you have to take her permission before smoking,” he said. Tobacco kills almost ten lakh Indians every year.
No skulls, bones
Asked about the issue of printing pictorial warnings on cigarette and beedi packets, he said, “The group of ministers headed by Pranab Mukherjee is yet to take a decision. There is a lot of pressure but I am not going to backtrack.”
Meanwhile, bowing to intense political pressure from within the ruling coalition, the union cabinet has decided against printing “skull and bones” warning signs on cigarette and beedi packets. Instead there will be some other warning symbol.
“There will be some kind of warning, but not the skull and bone symbols,” Union Information and Broadcasting minister P R Dasmunsi said after the cabinet meeting on Friday. Ironically the decision comes on the same day when union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss was awarded a special World Health Organisation prize for his leadership in anti-tobacco campaign.
But undeterred by this setback, Dr Ramadoss has announced rolling out another new set of rules to make workplaces smoke-free within the next three-four months.
However, his cabinet colleague Mr Dasmunsi has not only ruled out the controversial skull and bones warning symbols, but also said that the Tobacco Act of 2003 would be amended in the monsoon session for continuing with the anti-smoking campaign without “hurting the sentiments of any community.”
Though Mr Dasmunsi did not elaborate, a careful reading of the Act makes it clear that Section 8, 9 and 10 and may be one subsection in section 7 requires change. These sections deal with the “manner in which specified warnings shall be made, the language in which the specified warning shall be expressed and the size of letters and figures.” The I&B minister had stated that an innovative warning symbol would be created and agencies like Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity (DAVP) might be roped in for the task.
According to the WHO estimates, India is the world’s third largest producer of tobacco after China and Brazil. While the annual revenue from tobacco products is Rs 7700 crore, direct health cost for tobacco-related diseases like cancer, heart and lung diseases are Rs 30,800 crore.
Cancer fund
With the number of cancer cases rising, Union health minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss proposes to create Health Minister’s Cancer Fund from which money will be disbursed for the treatment of young cancer patients.
“Every year, there are one million new cancer cases. This is a huge burden on the country. I will ask both national and international companies to donate generously for the fund,” he said at a WHO function here.
Under the three-decade old national cancer control programme which was revised in 1984-85, the health ministry provides resources for development of oncology wings in government medical colleges, setting up cobalt therapy and mammography units and for generating awareness about the disease.
Moreover, the 19 regional cancer centres are supported by the ministry, but currently there is no provision of providing financial assistance to patients.
According to the estimates made by the national institute of health and family welfare, there are 2 to 2.5 million cancer patients at any given point of time, more than 60 per cent of whom are between 35 and 65 years of age.
