Experts fume, seek smoke-free policies at airports

Mumbai: To make airports across India smoke-free, the cancer specialists from the trust-run Tata Memorial Hospital have urged the DGCA to implement indoor smoke-free policies at all airports. A team, led by cancer specialists, said they took such steps after not receiving any favourable response from the airport authorities who were told about the violation of smoking policies at the Mumbai airport. In a recent correspondence with Mumbai International Airport Private Limited officials, Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, International Federation of Head and Neck Oncologist Societies mentioned that the glass cabins of smoking lounges are cleverly designed to glamorize smoking.

The letter which further reads as, “ The air outside all the lounges are heavily contaminated with air containing the carcinogens and the brand name of cigarette is still being displayed at point of sale, duty free shops are not displaying the mandatory warning.”

Talking to The Asian Age, Dr Chaturvedi, said, “ There are lots of things which needs to implemented. It is shocking to see that the civil aviation administration is allowing smokers to smoke in a location with the highest visibility that suits the cigarette industry rather than the passengers and airport staff.”

According to the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) of Centre for Disease Control (CDC), the leading national public health institute of the United States, Indira Gandhi International Airport New Delhi (ranks 21) and Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport (ranks 29) are one of the 27 busy airports of the world which do not have any indoor smoke free policies.