JOIN USSmoking away near colleges
Smoking is a habit which most people pick up in their college years. Although the Control of Tobacco Products Act, 2003 specifically prohibits the sale and consumption of tobacco products within a 100-metre-radius of any educational institution, it generally isn’t adhered to.
Given the number of paan shops that continue to mushroom around colleges in the City, and the number of students who frequent them, one would conclude that the Act has become a farce.
While most educational authorities claim to be helpless when it comes to curbing this problem, the students themselves appear largely indifferent. Yathindra Lakkanna, a professor of design at NIFT, very aptly calls these paan shops ‘vanishing shops’.
“We hold regular checks outside the college gates, but whenever we do, they seem to vanish immediately,” he explains. He adds that while the college authorities maintain a strict no-smoking policy within the campus, there is very little that they can do to stop students from smoking outside the gate. “We have put up a few signs, but we don’t have much control over the students there,” he admits.
Other colleges have had a bit more luck when it comes to curbing this problem. Principal Raghavan of East West Institutions recalls that when the smoking ban was enacted, there were a few paan shops right outside his college premises.“We told them to move, and they obliged almost immediately. They waited till they had sold one more day’s stock and then packed up and left,” he says adding that because of this, the college had no need to approach the police for help.
However, he does believe that apart from this, there is very little the college can do to actually prevent students from smoking within a 100 metres of the establishment. Mohamed Azhaam, a student of Indian Academy, says that there are a few paan shops outside his college which the students frequent, although he isn’t entirely sure whether they fall within a 100-metre-radius or not.
“The point is that a lot of my friends go there to buy cigarettes, usually after our classes. They generally don’t smoke immediately outside the gate but a little away from it,” he says.
“There hasn’t been a case of any student being caught smoking so far. I’m not sure what the punishment would be if they were,” he adds. NIFT, on the other hand, has a well-thought out system for punishing students who are caught smoking in or near the campus.
Yathindra explains, “A disciplinary committee is held almost immediately. It is organised by a council made up entirely of students and monitored by the faculty.The council imposes a fine on the offender, which they decide on themselves. It’s generally a very marginal amount if this is the first time the offender has been caught, but increases if it’s the second or the third. This money then goes into student development activities, like cleaning up the volley ball court or getting new dumbells for the gym.”
The best aspect of this practice, he adds, is that the entire process is left to the students themselves.