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Anbumani now turns to bottling up liquor

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: After the ban on smoking in public places, Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss has now set his sights on containing alcohol use. He does not propose to prohibit but build opinion against alcohol by coming out with a national policy.

In an informal interaction with journalists here on Wednesday, Dr. Ramadoss said the Ministry had begun work on drawing up the policy with the focus on the impact of alcohol on health. The policy would be sent to all States and it was up to them to accept it. “No question of banning alcohol; we will only tell State governments what to do.”

According to the Minister, studies showed that the average age of initiation to alcohol now was 13-and-a-half against 28 before. India has about 70 million drinkers and the World Health Organisation has billed 50 per cent of them as “hazardous drinkers.” And, 40 per cent of road accidents in the country were linked to drunk driving.

On the ban on smoking, Dr. Ramadoss said he was satisfied with the way it was implemented across the country during the first month. A couple of States were lagging behind and efforts were on to get them to fall in line. On the number of prosecutions in the first month, he said: “I want prosecution to be minimal; all I want is the law to be implemented.”

The Minister said the government decided to introduce Injectible Polio Vaccine (IPV) in nine districts of U.P. and then in Bihar — the two States which reported instances of polio transmission. As per the last count, India had 499 polio cases — 480 in these two States alone — despite the government spending more on polio immunisation than on other national health programmes.

On CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat’s letter to him on vaccine shortage and the demand for reopening three public sector production units, he said the facilities had been shut down because they did not meet international standards. “I would rather not give vaccines to children than give sub-standard vaccines.”

Dr. Ramadoss said Rs. 60 crore was given to the Pasteur Institute (Coonoor), the BCG Laboratory (Chennai) and the Central Research Institute (Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh) to make them Indian GMP-compliant as required by the WHO.

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