Government: Won’t change course on warning

“The government is complying with the court’s order to implement the earlier notification. The tobacco warnings were put off last year following the committee’s recommendation in its interim report. This final report will now be sent to the court, and unless the court intervenes and orders us to do otherwise, the present situation will prevail. We will not change our course,” a senior official told this newspaper. The parliamentary report also said that for the bidi industry, which according to them is a “unique feature of the country, specific to India only”, the government should “reconsider” its decision to cover the bidi industry and said in their case it will be viable to increase the size of warnings up to 50 per cent on one side of a bidi packet and for chewing tobacco, zarda, khaini, misri, etc.

“If 85 per cent of area is earmarked for printing specified health warnings, there is virtually no space left for printing the brand logo, name and address of the manufacturer, the number of bidis, etc as required under the rules,” it said.

The committee accused the health ministry of not having consulted various stakeholders before coming out with the amended rules of 2014, and suggested a “national tobacco control policy” be framed with well-defined objectives. Citing that the “proposed graphic health warnings have the potential to severely affect Indian farmers and Indian companies with gains for unscrupulous elements who manufacture and sell illicit tobacco and foreign countries from where these goods are smuggled into India, the committee suggested efforts be made for ‘discouraging” tobacco use and to find and promote alternatives for workers involved in the industry.